


The OtherWorld

by Laur



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coraline Fusion, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Supernatural Elements, Teen John, Teen Sherlock, Thriller, some disturbing themes, some innocent kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 19:11:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7813774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laur/pseuds/Laur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dealing with a personal loss, the grieving Holmes family moves to the Pink Palace Apartments, out in the middle of nowhere. Sherlock hates it - the boring house, the weird neighbours and especially his newfound stalker John. But then he's lured through a secret passageway to a whole OtherWorld, where nothing is ever boring and everything is as it should be, and embarks on an adventure that could mean leaving the real world behind forever.</p>
<p>A Coraline fusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The OtherWorld

It’s a grey, damp morning when the Holmes family arrives at the Pink Palace Apartments, the moving truck pulling up to the front door. The extravagant, Easter coloured house with its old, creaking bones looms overhead, as if threatening to collapse at the slightest gust of wind and crush them all. 

“It’s horrid,” Sherlock states, unmoving from his seat as Mummy and Mycroft unbuckle their seatbelts and get out of the car. 

“It’s home now,” Mycroft replies, but doesn’t disagree. Mummy doesn’t appear to have heard as she pops open the trunk, retrieving her bags of notes and textbooks, the items too valuable to risk packing in the moving truck. Mycroft leans back through the open door. “Though if you’d like to live in the car for the rest of the summer, you’re more than welcome to try,” he offers, and slams the car door behind him. 

For a moment, Sherlock fumes, sitting ramrod straight and glaring at the headrest in front of him. With a huff, he stabs the seatbelt eject button with his thumb, snatches his backpack and his violin case, and throws himself out of the car. Mummy has already retreated into the house, but as Sherlock stomps up the stone steps after her, his brother calls out: “Come help unpack!”

“That’s what the movers are for,” he snaps back, gentling his step as the front porch groans alarmingly under his feet. A girlish giggle floats on the air to him, and Sherlock pauses to look around. Leaning out the door to apartment A is a woman with graying blond hair, about Mummy’s age, wearing a frilly purple top. She waggles her fingers and blows a kiss at one of the movers, a hulk of a man with a scorpion tattoo on his neck. He stumbles in surprise and nearly drops a box full of cutlery.

“Careful!” Mycroft reprimands, and Sherlock rolls his eyes and escapes into the house, wandering down the main hallway and finding the study, where Mummy is already unpacking her papers.

“Where’s my room?” Sherlock asks, scuffing his shoe over the gap in the floor of the doorway.

She looks up at him in surprise and then the corners of her lips pull up, though her eyes remain dull. “Yours and Mycroft’s rooms are side-by-side on the second floor. Go on and pick one.”

She goes back to unpacking, and Sherlock loiters for a moment, taking in the dusty study with its desk, one chair and a couch in the corner. He does not ask her where she will sleep, even though he knows the apartment only has two bedrooms. When she sleeps, which isn’t often since June, it will be on that lumpy couch, Sherlock knows. At least until Mycroft goes back to uni mid-August and vacates the second room.

When she doesn’t look up again, Sherlock retreats upstairs, where he scouts out the two parallel rooms and claims the one with the window overlooking the decrepit, unused fountain in the back yard, surrounded by an immense, dead garden. He goes to dump his backpack, stuffed with reading materials and puzzle books, on the bare, ancient mattress, but then notices the stains and thinks better of it. He grimaces at the thought of the dead skin cells and bodily fluids from all the previous tenants, soaked into the fibres, and is exceedingly grateful that they brought his mattress from home. Their previous home, that is. 

His new bedroom has beige walls, blemished with bare nails, and hardwood floors that need a coat of polish. The closet is small, but in it is a rickety chair that Sherlock drags out and decides to use as a bedside table until he gets a new one.

Distant thuds and groans of the movers echo through the house and Sherlock decides to make himself scarce, leaving his violin and his backpack on the chair to mark his territory, then scrambling down the steps and out a back door. He has no set destination, only the urge to avoid all the tedious commotion and his brother’s irritating voice spurring him forwards, away from the house.

The house’s grounds are vast and rugged, with crumbling stone structures held together with snaking vines, stubborn weeds squeezing between cobblestones, wrought iron archways that seem to have no purpose, and scraggly trees like a fence along the perimeter. The fountain and garden take up most of the backyard and deserve some studying, but Sherlock doesn’t want to risk loitering so close to the house where Mycroft can find him, so he scampers over stones and roots and into the trees, where his shoes squelch in the mud with each step. Sherlock makes a face at the sound and the mess, but trudges onwards, noting that the mud here is really quite different from the mud at home, which doesn’t contain nearly as much sediment. 

Shoving his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, Sherlock begins following the traces of a manmade trail, where the vegetation is trampled. He swats at an insect every few minutes and misses Redbeard, who always made Sherlock’s mandatory Outside Time much more interesting, tugging the boy in random directions and sniffing at any number of things unnoticeable to human senses. 

He eventually makes it to some sort of clearing, where the mud is especially sludgy. There’s an abandoned wheel barrow, the colour of which is indecipherable under its dirt coat, near an ancient tree stump, and what looks like a rusty metal pail on its side underneath it. What catches Sherlock’s eye is the little troop of wild mushrooms by the tree stump, growing in a perfect circle formation. He approaches it curiously and pauses at the edge of the mushroom ring, considering. With one foot, he tests the centre of the circle and feels the surface warp and bounce under the pressure. 

Looking around, Sherlock spots a tree with a branch low enough for him to reach, which he snaps off with a crack. The cluster of twigs serves as a brush for Sherlock to clear away most of the mud, revealing what looks like a wooden hatch. Through a hole in the hatch, Sherlock can see nothing but pitch black, so he wriggles the stick between the earth and the wood and shoves, swinging the hatch wide open. It slowly reaches ninety degrees, and then tips all the way over, spraying mud everywhere as it lands with a thud. Sherlock jumps back before cautiously leaning over the gaping hole of what can only be an old well. He eyes his trousers dubiously, which are already caked in mud at his ankles, and, deciding they’re a lost cause, drops to his knees at the edge of the well to get a closer look. He can’t even see the sky’s reflection in the water it’s so deep, so, with an ear over the well, he drops in a pebble and starts counting. He gets to five before a very distant splash echoes up to him and his eyes widen. That’s at least a hundred meters deep!

A high-pitched feline screech suddenly rips through the air, and Sherlock jerks in surprise. Leaning over the well as he is, he nearly tumbles in head first, just barely managing to push himself to the side with his hand on the ledge, falling onto his left hip and elbow a few inches from the well’s edge.

“Oh, are you okay?” someone exclaims, and then hands are tugging him up and away from the well, making the whole process of standing much more complicated than necessary.

“Get off of me!” Sherlock complains, and twists out of the grip to face his attacker. “Are you trying to kill me?”

The boy who stands before him stares with wide, deep blue eyes in his round face, his messy blond hair windblown into ridiculous tufts and spikes. At the age of fifteen, Sherlock has yet to have a drastic growth spurt, and is of about equal height to the boy, who appears a year or two younger than he. The boy’s bike lies on its side a little ways away.

“No, of course not!” the boy stutters, taking a step back. “I was trying to stop you from falling! Sorry my cat scared you.”

“I wasn’t scared,” Sherlock replies automatically, eyeing the black cat that has begun to wind itself between the boy’s legs, obviously the creature that had startled him. “That mangy thing is your cat?”

Rather than take offense, the boy looks down fondly at the cat and stoops to scratch it behind the ears. “Well, he’s not really my cat, he’s a stray, but I once freed him when he got his paw caught in a fence, and he’s followed me ever since.” The boy looks up at him. “Have you got any pets?”

“No,” he says shortly, and is content to leave it at that, but the boy keeps looking at him expectantly, and Sherlock sighs loudly. “Mummy said it would be too much of a hassle to move with my dog.”

“Oh,” the boy’s mouth twists as the cat tires of his petting and slinks away. He stands, his trousers as filthy as Sherlock’s. “That’s too bad. Grandma doesn’t mind pets in the apartments.”

“You’re a Watson,” Sherlock realizes. It makes sense – there aren’t many houses out here, the closest being the Watsons just down the street, who own the Pink Palace Apartments. 

“Yeah, I live over there.” The boy turns to point in the direction of his house, revealing a brown stripe all the way up his back from his bike tire kicking up mud. “I’m John,” the boy introduces himself, turning and holding out filthy hand. Sherlock eyes it critically and makes no move to clasp it. John laughs at him and lowers it. “Fine, Clean Freak, but you’re already a mess anyway.”

“If you spill a splash of wine, is that a good excuse to pour the rest of the bottle on the carpet, too?” Sherlock retorts. “I’m Sherlock Holmes.” 

John looks at him like something Sherlock said confuses him. “You have a weird name, but I suppose it suits you,” he decides, and walks around him to close the well hatch with a grunt. “Not your fault, it’s not like you get to choose your own name.” 

Sherlock, who had decided to go by his first middle name rather than William when he was six years old, bristles and turns on the spot to watch him. “It’s a memorable name,” Sherlock argues. “You have a boring name.”

“Maybe, but at least it’s not stuffy. You come from Buckingham Palace, right?” Sherlock opens his mouth to retort that just because John’s entire extended family can only afford to all live in one house, that doesn’t make Sherlock rich, but John blathers on before he gets the chance. “I’m surprised Grandma let you guys move in, she never rents to people with kids.”

“I’m not a kid!” Sherlock retorts. “And what does that even mean?”

John straightens and rubs the back of his neck, eyes downcast. “Oh, nothing,” he stutters. “Just that she doesn’t like the mess.”

Out in the distance, comes a shout: “Johnny! Johnny, come home!”

“You’re a horrible liar, Johnny boy,” Sherlock says nastily. “And I think you’re being summoned.” 

John makes a face as his name is called again and moves to retrieve his bike. “Well, it was nice meeting a real life Clean Freak, Your Highness.” He shakes the bike a bit to get off the worst of the mud, straddles it and takes off, spraying mud behind him.

Sherlock scowls fiercely as a drop of mud hits his cheek. “Commoner!” he yells after him, which is just stupid, but John makes him so _angry_ , with his stupid bike, and his stupid smile and his stupid, muddy clothes. The cat slinks in front of Sherlock, seeming to glare at him in censure before trotting off after John. “Stupid cat.”

  


Covered in mud, Sherlock steps into the shower with his clothes still on and stands in the intermittent spray as the water goes from brown to taupe to only a little yellow, then finally strips naked. By the time he’s clean, dry and dressed in fresh trousers and jumper, Mycroft is calling him down for a late lunch.

“Tell Mummy to come eat,” Mycroft orders him, cutting the cheese and tomato sandwiches into rectangles. Sherlock prefers triangles, but he’s not a child, so he doesn’t comment.

“She won’t come.”

Mycroft takes out three glasses. “Try anyway. And then take out the milk.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Sherlock mutters, but goes to the study and gently knocks on the door. When there’s no response, he quietly opens the door and approaches Mummy, who’s hunched over the desk, writing feverishly. Even in the advanced mathematics class as he is, Sherlock still can’t make sense of what she’s jotting down, the equations looking like alien code. “It’s time for lunch, Mummy.”

She startles and jerks her pencil, a graphite dash bisecting her equation. “Oh, Sherlock, honey.” She quickly erases the line and fixes the equation. “I’m not hungry, dear.”

_You haven’t eaten since yesterday,_ he doesn’t say. “Mycroft said to tell you.”

She continues writing for a moment, and Sherlock waits. He knows what it’s like, to be so focused on something that you need time to process external stimulus. “Tell him I’ll be right there,” she says at last. She pauses long enough to smile at him and stroke his cheek, which Sherlock used to hate less than a month ago, but now he doesn’t mind so much.

“Okay,” he whispers, and exits the office, closing the door behind him as she goes back to her writing. When he gets to the kitchen, he slumps at the table without getting the milk. “She said she’ll be right here,” he informs his brother dully, and Mycroft sighs. 

Mycroft places a plate and a glass in front of Sherlock and takes out the milk without comment, before sitting at Sherlock’s right with his own sandwich. Mummy’s plate is in her spot across from Sherlock. The spot to Sherlock’s left is empty.

There’s spinach in Sherlock’s sandwich, snuck in strategically so it can’t be seen from the outside. “I hate spinach,” Sherlock complains around a bite. He doesn’t, but he’s still peeved that it’s not cut in triangles, like Mummy does it, and he needs to whine about something. 

“You’ll survive.”

Sherlock actually eats the whole sandwich and drinks an entire glass of milk, unexpectedly hungry after his walk earlier. When he’s finished, he pushes back from the table.

“Help me clean up,” Mycroft says.

“I have to unpack!” Sherlock declares and dashes off to the sound of Mycroft’s irritated growl. 

In his room are his three boxes of belongings and his trunk of clothing. The old, stained mattress is replaced with the one from home. There are only seven hangers in his closet, so he hangs up what he can and then makes his bed in a sour mood, grumbling as he tucks sheets and straightens corners. There’s a tall bookshelf that’s been set up in a corner of the room, where he organizes all his books and texts, the stupid novel from Sebastian going on the least accessible top shelf, and on the empty nails in the walls he hangs his photos: a periodic table, a poster with images and descriptions of the most poisonous plants in the world, a pirate skull with the words ‘bored to death’ underneath, and a thick framed glass container displaying the furry bodies of the common bee specimens found in the UK. The last frame in the box is wrapped in tissue paper, which Sherlock carefully unwraps and places on his bedside chair, next to his violin case. The labeled, full-size, plastic human skeleton his parents got him for his fourteenth birthday goes in the corner opposite the bookshelf, the lava lamp from Molly goes on the floor by his bed, and his extra blanket goes in the chest of linens at the foot of his bed.

The last item in the last box is a red dog collar and leash, and for a moment Sherlock stares down at it. He bends down to grab it, then quickly stuffs it under his pillow.

Unpacking finished save his clothing, his room looks much less boring now. The early evening sun shines through his window and reflects off the glass of the photo by his bed. He sits on his bed and looks around his room, noting all the differences from his room at home and finding fault in all of them. He considers his violin case, but isn’t in the mood to play.

  


When the smell of dinner reaches Sherlock’s room, he makes his way to the kitchen. Mycroft is watching spaghetti boil in a pot while stirring the sauce, so Sherlock goes about setting the table for two. The sound of cutlery clinking makes Mycroft raise his eyebrows in disbelief – Sherlock never helps in the kitchen – but he does not comment. “Everything in order with your things?” he asks instead.

“I need more hangers,” Sherlock tells him, placing a fork, spoon and a glass each at his own and his brother’s spots.

“I’m sure you’ll find some in the house. Or else we can go buy some.” Mycroft pulls a slippery strand of spaghetti out of the pot with a fork, blows away the steam, and tests its consistency by eating it. He turns off the element. “You forgot a place setting.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Mycroft frowns. He takes the steaming pot to the sink and pours it into a strainer. Using tongs, he dumps a generous helping of spaghetti on a plate, sprinkles on cheese, douses it with tomato and ground beef sauce, and hands it to Sherlock, who takes it with the hand not holding a fork and spoon. He takes it to the study and places it on Mummy’s desk, beside the laptop she is working on. Food delivered, Sherlock just stands there for a moment. “Thank you, honey,” she says finally, absently.

“You’re welcome,” he replies, too loudly.

Dinner is a silent, brooding affair, after which Sherlock deigns to help place dishes in the sink – Mycroft discovered that the dishwasher is broken after lunch – before escaping. Handwashing dishes would be too much.

He’s not tired, but he changes into his pyjamas anyway and brushes his teeth to rid his mouth of the tomato sauce’s acidity, then turns on his lava lamp. He stands in front of his bookshelf, considering. There’s only one book he really wants to read right now, but still he hesitates. With a sigh, he goes on his tiptoes and pulls out the stupid fictional novel from Sebastian, retrieves his flashlight from his backpack, and crawls into bed. He reads half a chapter before falling asleep. 

  


He does not sleep well that night, in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar house, and odd noises occasionally disturbing him. At one point he thinks he hears a bird squawking through his wall, and he has a vague memory of Mycroft checking on him and muttering under his breath. In the morning, he notices that his lava lamp is off with a chiding note next to it written in his brother’s hand.

_Don’t fall asleep with this on. You’ll burn the house down._

Sherlock scowls. He _knows_ that, and it’s not like he did it on purpose. He crumples up the note and passes Mycroft’s closed bedroom door on the way to the bathroom, where he chucks the paper in the garbage. He completes his morning routine and walks down to the kitchen where he makes himself a bowl of cereal. He’s finished and placing his bowl and spoon in the sink for Mycroft to clean later when there’s a knock on the back door. He hesitates – if it’s neighbours coming over to say hi he wants nothing to do with it – but Mummy’s voice drifts out from the study. 

“Answer it, Sherlock.”

He sighs and trudges to the door, which he quickly swings open, hoping to startle the nosy guest, but the porch is empty. The sky is cloudy as he leans out into the brisk morning air, looking for footprints, and finds them, deep in the toe and light in the heel, indicating the person had fled quickly. The small size hints at the person’s identity. What he finds next confirms it.

There’s a small newspaper bundle on the porch, which Sherlock takes to the kitchen. There’s a note taped to it:

_Hey Holmes,_

_Look what I found in my grandma’s trunk. Look familiar?_

_John_

Unwrapping the newspaper, Sherlock finds himself. Or rather, a doll version of himself. It’s got a mop of black curls, a miniature hoodie identical to his own, his facial bone structure, his favourite shoes – it even has the little scar on his bottom lip from when he fell onto the corner of a desk when he was seven.

“Who was it?” Mummy calls, and Sherlock makes his way to the study, the doll hidden behind his leg. Other than for her laptop and papers, Mummy has yet to unpack, the study boring and empty. There are no sheets on the couch and the walls are bare.

“John Watson wanted me to come play outside.”

She nods, eyes on her laptop. “You can if you want to,” she says after a moment.

“Of course I don’t want to, John’s boring and stupid,” Sherlock says scathingly. He watches her reaction carefully, but she just nods absently. She does not reprimand him for his cruel words, and suddenly, illogically, Sherlock misses her terribly. She’s just there, right in front of him, only a desk between them, but Sherlock misses her. “I found an old well yesterday, Mummy,” he announces, though he can tell she now wants him to leave. “Guess how deep it was.”

She glances at him over the laptop before her eyes go back to the screen. “I’m busy, Sherlock.”

“Just guess a number,” he presses.

She continues typing.

“Any number.”

“Ee to the power of half pi divided by…” she mutters to herself.

“At least a hundred meters deep!” Sherlock exclaims. “Want to know how I calculated it?”

“Sherlock,” she sighs, exasperated.

He frowns. “Aren’t you curious?”

“Please go read a book, Sherlock. Or go outside, or explore the house. This house is ancient, it must have a thousand mysteries for you to discover.”

Sherlock leaves, slamming the door behind him and stomps up the stairs to his room, making enough ruckus to wake Mycroft who yells at him to keep it down. Sherlock slams his own door for good measure and flops on his bed, the doll still in his hand. He looks at the photo at his bedside and his eyes sting, so he mashes his face into his pillow, listening to the sounds of Mycroft getting up and walking down the hall to the bathroom.

When he feels like he’s suffocating, Sherlock sits up and looks at the doll on his lap. The oddest thing about the doll is that, instead of coloured beads or delicate stitching, it has black buttons for eyes, overlarge and unnerving. Other than that, it really looks just like him, and Sherlock feels odd at the thought of leaving it alone. He needs to supervise it, he decides.

He leaves his room before Mycroft can come check on him, deciding to explore the house like Mummy had recommended. At least the mini-Sherlock doesn’t think he’s a nuisance – or if he does he can’t say anything about it.

He starts in the sunroom, which currently offers a great view of the dark rainclouds moving in, the first rain drops splattering on the windows. There’s water damage along the sill, and sure enough, as the downpour increases, the leaky spots in the windows reveal themselves. There’s an unpacked box of miscellaneous items sitting in the middle of the floor: the anniversary clock that used to sit over the fireplace in their old living room, a stack of DVDs and CDs, a couple candles and that decorative Mexican bowl Mummy is so fond of. There are scratches on the floor that indicate where the previous tenants had furniture, but there’s nothing interesting in that information. 

“The previous tenants must have been very boring,” Sherlock tells the doll. “Not a single questionable stain.”

They move on to the next door, a storage closet, dusty enough that Sherlock sneezes the moment he steps in. He flicks the light switch, and a single hanging light bulb illuminates the narrow room and its two long bars, from which hang at least a dozen bare hangers. 

“Perfect,” Sherlock exclaims, and unhooks them, slipping his arm through the stack so they hang at his elbow. “I needed more hangers.” In the back of the room there is a small bundle on the floor, and Sherlock approaches curiously. Crouching down, he dumps mini-Sherlock on the floor and reaches out, picking up the old deer-stalker hat. It’s checkered, with ear flaps, and possibly the most hideous thing he’s ever seen.

He places it on his head and looks at mini-Sherlock. “How do I look?”

Mini-Sherlock looks unimpressed. 

“You’re right, it would make a much better death-Frisbee,” Sherlock agrees, and chucks it at the wall to demonstrate. He grabs the doll and the hat and gets up. As he straightens, a cobweb brushes his face and Sherlock exclaims in disgust. He stumbles back and grabs one of the racks for balance, which pulls loose from the wall on one end and slams into Sherlock’s shoulder before hitting the ground with a resounding clang. Sherlock cries out in surprise and pain, but manages not to fall, and rubs at his throbbing shoulder, which will surely bruise.

Pounding steps approach rapidly and then Mycroft appears in the doorway, eyes wide. “What did you do?” he accuses, and Sherlock drops his hand from his shoulder, standing straight. “Are you alright?”

“This wretched place is falling apart,” Sherlock exclaims. “Why did we have to move here when we can afford much better? If your uni is so expensive, you should just drop out so we can afford –”

A shadow passes over Mycroft’s face, his neck fat unattractively rolled as he glares down at Sherlock. “It’s got nothing to do with money, and you know it, Sherlock,” he hisses. He glances down at the doll in Sherlock’s hand and his eyes narrow, his lips twisting into something cruel. “I know you don’t have any friends here, Sherlock, but you are really much too old to play with dolls, don’t you think?” He stalks away and after a moment a door slams.

Sherlock rolls his smarting shoulder and sniffs, then pulls the hat onto his head and runs out of the room, down the stairs, out of the house, and into the rain, tucking the stupid doll under his shirt to keep it dry. Mycroft’s wrong; Sherlock’s not playing with it, he’s supervising it.

He’s not wearing his coat, but the hat keeps the rain out of his eyes as Sherlock runs. He nearly slips in the mud twice before he makes it to the trees. He climbs one quickly, scratching his hands, and perches in the vee of two thick branches, the leaves sheltering him from the worst of the rain.

Sherlock sits there until the rain slows and stops, the harmonic percussion of raindrops striking leaves and stone and dirt wrapping around him like a blanket, soothing his nerves. Pressed against his skin, mini-Sherlock helps keep him warm as he sits there, curled in a ball.

He waits for at least half an hour, until the first rays of sun peak through the clouds, then hops down from the tree. He’s run a decent way from the Pink Palace but he’s in no hurry to get home, where Mummy probably doesn’t even notice his absence and Mycroft doesn’t care. He pulls out mini-Sherlock and sits him on the back of his neck, holding one of the doll’s feet in each hand, so that the doll can see over his head. He winds his ways through trees and skirts puddles all the way back, but when the house looms over him he pauses at the old fountain rather than go in. He places mini-Sherlock on the fountain’s edge.

The fountain is quite immense – nearly thirty cubic metres, he estimates – big enough to serve as a pool really, if not for the ghastly mermaid statue right in the centre. Her face is tipped towards the sky, her features smudged and ill-defined from years of rain and wind, one hand buried in her hair and the other leaning against the rock on which she sits. Her long tresses cover her breasts and her tail curls into the water. There’s a hole where her mouth should be, and if the fountain were functioning, that’s where the water would spray out, as if she were playfully spitting water. As it is, the fountain is filled with stagnant rain water, murky with dead leaves and algae and an entire ecosystem of bacteria, Sherlock is sure. The little fish statues that encircle the mermaid are covered in slime, the nozzles in their mouths clogged. Sherlock considers taking a sample of the water and testing it, checking to see if any truly harmful bacteria are festering, but then he remembers that he does not have his lab equipment anymore, and he doesn’t know where the closest education buildings are. 

The sound of a twig snapping catches Sherlock’s attention, but before he can turn towards the sound a voice cries out: “Ambush attack!” 

A rapid series of pops sound out as Sherlock jerks around, and his chest and stomach are suddenly pelted with little orange projectiles. It doesn’t hurt but it is surprising, and he gives a yelp as he steps back and hits the fountain’s ledge, sitting down hard but fortunately not falling backwards into the sludge.

John peeks out from behind a bush and scurries towards him, a grin on his face. There’s a plastic, oversized gun in his hand, and when Sherlock looks down he sees foam darts with rubber heads littering the ground at his feet. 

“I got ya good!” John exclaims. “You didn’t even hear me coming.”

Sherlock stands quickly, his fists clenched and eyes narrowed. “I nearly fell into the fountain, you idiot,” he spits. “And I don’t appreciate you stalking me.” There’s an offended sounding _meow_ and the black cat trots down one of the paths towards them. “You or your stupid cat.”

Offended, John frowns. “He’s not stupid, and I’m not stalking you,” he argues. His eyes flick down to the darts at Sherlock’s feet and Sherlock stomps on one viciously. John grimaces. “I’m sorry you almost fell into the fountain.”

“You should be,” Sherlock retorts. He picks up the four darts that hit him and chucks them into the scum filled fountain, where they float, to his annoyance.

“Hey!”

“What do you want? Why did you attack me?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, John glares at him. “I didn’t attack you, I was just playing. And I wanted to make sure you got your doppelgänger doll.”

Sherlock reaches back and grabs the doll off the fountain’s edge. “Did you make it?” he demands, holding the doll out towards the younger boy. The cat sees it and hisses, slinking behind John’s legs. “Is it some kind of joke?”

“What? No, I just found it, like I said,” John insists. “I figured, cuz it looks just like you, you ought to have it.”

“Dolls are boring,” Sherlock mutters.

“If it’s so boring why are you playing with it?” John challenges with a smirk.

“I’m supervising it.”

“Supervising it,” John repeats dubiously.

“That’s what I said,” Sherlock deadpans, hoping the boy will lose interest and go away.

He doesn’t. Instead the two boys watch each other for a silent moment. John shuffles his feet and fiddles with his toy gun.

“So, do you wanna play ninjas with me? I’ve got another gun you can use.” John points at his backpack.

“Why in the world would I want to play with you?” Sherlock asks nastily, but John just shrugs.

“My sister doesn’t want to play and there aren’t any other kids around here, so…” he trails off.

His stubbornness is impressive, Sherlock will give him that. He hesitates – would it really be so bad to play with this boy? To run through the trees and shoot darts at each other? Before Sherlock can reply, John continues on, Sherlock’s indecision causing him to ramble.

“And I also thought, well – I overheard my grandma on the phone, so I know about your dad, so I just wanted to say I’m sorry, and I know you must be lonely –”

Sherlock doesn’t know what his expression looks like, but it’s frightening enough that John immediately ceases speaking and takes a step back.

“Your pity is both unneeded and unwanted,” Sherlock hisses, each word sharp as broken glass. 

“It’s not – I don’t – It’s not pity,” John stammers. The cat jumps up into his arms, nuzzling against the boy’s chin comfortingly. “I just – I mean, I wanted to say that I understand –”

“Your inability to mind your own business does not mean you understand a thing about me,” Sherlock spits out, the words his own projectiles, more painful and effective than any childish foam darts. John flinches as if the words physically hit him.

His mouth opens, but no sounds emerges as Sherlock pushes past him and into the house, mini-Sherlock dangling from his fist. The cat’s reproachful hiss follows after him.

  


Sherlock makes himself a cheese toastie for lunch, because he knows Mycroft is revolted by the smell, and carelessly leaves the pan of grease and congealed cheese on the stovetop. He dumps the crumbs from his plate onto the kitchen table for good measure.

He wanders out of the kitchen, passing the mirror in the hall, and into the living room afterwards, the only room in their apartment he hasn’t explored yet. There’s a cardboard box labeled ‘photo albums’ on a rickety table in front of the fireplace, the only furniture in the room. The mirror above the fireplace is cracked, reflecting a fractured world, as are parts of the ceiling, which is really not reassurance of the house’s structural integrity. 

Sherlock places the doll and the deerstalker on the table as he peers into the box, taking out one of the large albums. Every summer as long as Sherlock can remember, Mummy has added to the family photo albums, cutting pictures, putting them in order, writing little descriptions. 

“It’s important to document all of life’s perfect little moments,” she would say. “One day, these memories will be all we have left.”

This is the first summer she has broken this tradition. 

He sits cross legged on the floor with the album in his lap, slowly flipping pages full of birthdays and Christmases and family trips. Father smiles back at him from the photos, an empty, imperfect representation of the man. Mummy sold most of his things after the funeral, and whatever she decided to keep is hidden in storage somewhere, even the pocket watch Father promised would be Sherlock’s one day. He reaches for the doll on the table without thinking, brow furrowing when he doesn’t feel it. With a huff he stands, but the doll isn’t on the table.

“I could have sworn…” Sherlock mutters, looking under the table. Not there either. “Where are you, mini-me?”

Ah, there! He spots the doll on the floor behind an empty box nearly pressed against the wall. “How in the world…” He throws the box aside and pauses in surprise at what this reveals. 

There’s a secret door in the wall. Only about as high as Sherlock’s hips and painted over, but definitely a door, with a lock visible under the paint.

There’s an irritated exclamation from the kitchen which precludes Mycroft’s appearance, his angry figure taking up most of the doorway. Sherlock looks up at him from the floor, expecting a lecture, but instead, when their eyes meet, Mycroft freezes. His eyes glance around the room, catching on the open photo album, and he visibly deflates. Embarrassed, Sherlock rubs at his eyes, hoping they aren’t red-rimmed, and clears his throat.

“Tell me where the keys are,” he demands imperiously, tracing the door’s frame. “I want to open this door.”

Mycroft steps into the room. “Two drawers on the right from the cutlery,” he replies, bending and picking up the photo album, which he gazes at with a wistful expression. “It doesn’t go anywhere, Sherlock.”

“I want to open it,” Sherlock repeats and leaves the room. 

He finds the drawer easily and retrieves the one key that stands out among the rest – long and black, where the others are stubby brass and silver, and with an odd button-like head, where the others are all square. He returns to the sitting room and drops to his knees in front of the door. Curious despite himself, Mycroft hovers at Sherlock’s back, watching as Sherlock uses the key to cut the door out of the paint and then unlock it. With eager fingers he swings the door open, not sure what he’s expecting to find, but something interesting something other than – 

Bricks. Sherlock sags in disappointment.

“It must have been blocked off when the house was subdivided into apartments,” Mycroft explains.

“Obviously,” Sherlock mutters, pouting a little.

“Oh, don’t sulk,” Mycroft says lightly. “It’s not as cute as it used to be.”

“I’m not sulking,” Sherlock denies, stroking the brick wall, feeling the gritty texture under his fingertips.

“Where did you get this?” 

Sherlock looks over his shoulder to see Mycroft holding the doll, observing it with a perplexed expression. “ _John Watson,_ ” he begins disdainfully, “dumped it on me this morning.” He thought hard about what he would say to Mycroft when this moment came. “I’m keeping it as an experiment.”

His brother raises an eyebrow and peers down his nose at him. “An experiment.”

“It belongs to John’s grandmother,” Sherlock explains, standing and brushing off the knees of his trousers. “I’m waiting to see how long it is until John asks for it back, at which time I will return it in exchange for him to stop pestering me.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Mycroft holds out the doll to him. “An ingenious way to completely isolate yourself and add to your list of enemies.” His tone is neutral, but Sherlock still gets the sense that he is being mocked.

He frowns as Mycroft leaves the room, then turns back to the bricked up doorway. He knocks on the wall with his knuckles, but the sound is flat and dull, no echoing. “Boring,” he sighs to mini-Sherlock and leaves as well, kicking the small door closed behind him. He slips the key into his pocket.

  


In bed that night, he sits against the headboard of his bed and plucks at his violin strings. He needs to practice more, or he risks losing the calluses on his fingertips, but whenever he coaxes an actual melody from the strings, his throat goes tight. Father was his most avid listener, always turning off the radio in favour of Sherlock’s shaky first notes of a new piece, or humming along to the tunes Sherlock knew by heart. The music feels different now, without him here, hollower somehow, and stiff. Sherlock can still play all the right notes, but father gave those notes meaning, a purpose. Life.

His fingers tense on the instrument, and Sherlock feels the sudden urge to throw the violin at the wall, smash it to a million pieces. It’s a useless thing now, an instrument with no audience, music with no listener. 

Forcing his grip to relax, Sherlock places the instrument carefully back in its case on the chair, then sits mini-Sherlock on top of the lid, so the doll doesn’t block the family photo. 

“I miss him,” Sherlock whispers to the doll, lying down and pulling the covers to his chin. “More than Redbeard, or my science equipment, or Molly or Seb, or my old room.”

He turns on his side, back to the chair and everything on it, and closes his eyes, hoping for sleep to claim him quickly.

  


His restless dozing his interrupted by the scratching of tiny claws on wood and a very quiet squeak. 

Instantly awake, Sherlock slowly sits up, eyes wide, and locks gazes with a fluffy white mouse. Carefully extracting his legs from the covers, Sherlock reaches for the extra blanket at the foot of his bed, moving at a snail’s pace so as not to startle the mouse, which wriggles its little nose and scratches behind its ear. 

With a sudden burst of energy, Sherlock throws himself to the floor, blanket-net open and ready, and the mouse darts out his ajar bedroom door. Scrambling up, Sherlock bolts after the rodent, knocking into the hallway banister and the wall as he runs in pursuit. He nearly trips on the carpet at the foot of the stairs and then rips his pyjamas as he slides on his knees in the living room, the mouse scrabbling just beyond his grasp. With a victorious squeak and a final twitch of the tail, the mouse squirms under the secret door while Sherlock watches in confusion. He knows for a fact that there is nothing but a brick wall behind that door. He throws it open, wondering how on earth both he and Mycroft missed a mouse hole, then gasps in shock at what he sees.

There’s a tunnel behind the door, humming with energy and pulsing with cool, indigo light. A breeze whispers against Sherlock’s face and at the other end of the tunnel an identical little door cracks open, through which the mouse makes its escape. 

Unable to believe his eyes, Sherlock looks back at the room behind him, at the crack in the mirror and the ceiling, at the dull, grey walls, at the box of photo albums on the table. The pulsating light pulls Sherlock’s attention back to the tunnel and he begins crawling without hesitation, the tunnel soft against his knees.

Curiosity pulls him forward, the air humming around him, and he eagerly pushes open the door at the end of the tunnel, crawling through. 

“What?” he mutters to himself, emerging back into the living room again. He stands, looks around and realizes, upon closer inspection, that though it looks like the living room, it is not quite identical. Here, the old fireplace is lit, the mirror above it whole and perfect, the ceiling crack-free. His parents’ anniversary clock sits on the mantel above the fireplace, its torsion pendulum spinning smoothly, along with several cheerily flickering candles.

The sound of humming and a delicious smell draw him towards the kitchen, where the lights are on and Mummy stands at the counter, her back to him.

“Mummy?” Sherlock exclaims in confusion.

She turns, a mixing bowl and a whisk in her hands, and Sherlock stares. She looks better than she has in weeks, her hair clean and neatly combed, her skin flushed healthily, no bags under her eyes or slump to her shoulders. Sherlock didn’t realize how tired she’s been looking since Father’s death until now, presented with this smiling, well-rested twin of his mother. The only thing wrong is the eyes: there are none. Instead of her bright blue gaze are two black, shiny buttons, hard and trained right on him.

“You’re just in time for dinner, honey,” she tells him.

Sherlock looks out the kitchen windows, where it’s dark outside, and realizes he must be dreaming. An incredibly vivid dream.

“You’re not my mother,” he accuses her, stepping further into the kitchen. “This isn’t real.”

“Of course it is, silly,” he teases him, still smiling. Sherlock hasn’t seen Mummy smile, really smile, in ages. “And I’m your Other-Mother.” She puts down the bowl and whisk and turns to check the oven. “Oh, perfect, they’re ready.”

“What are?”

She turns off the oven and approaches him. “The fish and chips!” He shies away from her, but her hand only brushes his back, urging him to turn and follow her out of the kitchen. “There’s just one thing I need to show you first, and then we can have a nice family dinner.”

They come to a stop in front of the closed study door, where light and the strains of the radio drift out of the gap at the floor.

“Now, Sherlock, love,” Other-Mummy warns, kneeling at his side, “this is going to come as a shock, but don’t be scared. I’m right here if you get overwhelmed.”

Her words are comforting, but Sherlock still says, “I’m not a baby.”

“Of course not, you’re my brave bee.” She pushes open the door and the sounds of the radio increase, familiar and comforting. The room is bright with several lamps and colourful paintings on the walls, several welcoming couches and an immense bookshelf filling the space. Sat in one of the seats, his foot tapping to the beat and a book on his lap, is Father, and Sherlock freezes in the doorway.

Father looks up from his book and a delighted smile lights his face. He’s exactly as Sherlock remembers him, with the exception of the button eyes, identical to Other-Mummy’s, that glimmer behind his glasses. Sherlock’s vision wavers as this Other-Father stands, placing his book on the table beside his chair, and a steadying hand rests on Sherlock’s back.

“Father?” Sherlock whispers, voice shaking in time with the quivers that run through his body. 

“Sherlock,” the man rumbles, voice the same as always, and Sherlock’s lips wobble. “How I’ve missed you.”

Throwing himself forward, Sherlock finds himself engulfed in warm, achingly familiar arms, and the tears leak out of him, unstoppable. He wraps his arms around the sorely-missed torso, fingers clawed into the jumper at the man’s back, and buries his hot face in his father’s chest, hearing the steady heartbeat against his ear.

One large hard settles against Sherlock’s head, the other rubbing circles on his back, while Father murmurs soothing, meaningless platitudes.

“Hush now, everything’s all better now.”

When he feels able to, Sherlock straightens and the arms around him loosen, allowing him to step back and look up at his father’s face. The unnerving button eyes are a shock all over again, reminding him of the otherness of this place.

“Where are we?” Sherlock wonders, as Other-Father wipes his face with a handkerchief. “Is this – I mean – you’re not –” he falters, unable to say the word.

Other-Father smiles sympathetically. “You don’t need to worry about anything like that here, son.”

“Everything is as it should be here,” another voice says, and Sherlock turns, finding Mycroft in the doorway behind Other-Mummy, buttons for eyes as well.

“Mycroft?”

“I’m your Other-brother, little brother,” Mycroft says with a smirk, leaning against the doorframe. “The better one, if you ask me.”

Other-Mummy smiles fondly as she takes Other-Father’s hand and Sherlock stares at the three of them, the Holmes family reunited. The joy wars with his natural skepticism – this is too good to be true.

His doubt must show on his face, because Other-Mummy beckons him out of the room and towards the dining room. “Come along, Sherlock. Oh, you don’t know how long we’ve been waiting for you.”

“For me?”

“We can finally have a real family dinner,” Other-Father agrees.

The four of them sit at their usual spots around the dining room table, where a veritable feast has manifested. Fish and chips, potato salad, crispy chicken and sweet corn on the cob. There are waffles with honey and whipped cream, a chocolate fondue with strawberries and pineapple, cream puffs and cupcakes. The food sits on a slowly rotating centre piece.

“What would you like to drink?” Other-Mummy asks him as he shovels chips onto his plate.

“Vanilla milkshake,” he says immediately, and gapes as a hole appears in the table in front of him, from which a tall glass rises, filled with a thick milkshake with cherry and straw included. He dips a chip in the milkshake and plops it in his mouth, the burst of salty and sweet completely perfect.

On his right, Other-Mycroft is going straight for the fondue, while Other-Father is happily munching on potato salad.

“Oh, it’s so nice to have everyone together, home at last,” Other-Mummy sighs happily, her own place empty. 

Sherlock swallows and cocks his head. He doesn’t think of the apartment in the Pink Palace as home. He still thinks of their previous house as home, so why would this perfect other-home, with his whole family, be here rather than the old house? “You know, I didn’t realize I had another mother,” he ventures.

Coming to stand at Other-Father’s shoulder, Other-Mummy smiles. “Of course you do. Everyone does.”

“Really?” Sherlock asks skeptically. 

“You don’t know everything, Sherlock,” Other-Mycroft tells him, licking chocolate off his fingers. 

“Oh, he’s a quick learner,” Other-Father consoles. “Quicker than you!”

Sherlock grins as Other-Mycroft makes a face, but his mood is obviously not spoiled, because the next moment he tells Sherlock, “We should play a game after you finish eating.”

“A game? Like Pirates?” Sherlock hesitates. “But you’re too – we’re too old for games.”

Other-Mycroft scoffs delicately. “No one’s ever too old for games.”

“Oh, I’ll need to fix Sherlock’s pyjamas before you two go!” Other-Mummy exclaims, and pulls a small pouch from her trouser pocket.

Sherlock glances at his knees, where the fabric is torn, and feels a wave of unease. He’s certain she hasn’t even glanced at his knees the whole time he’s been here. “How do you know about…?” he trails off, glancing at their too-earnest faces, their black button eyes gleaming dully back at him. “You know, I’d love to play a game, but I’d better be getting home now.” He glances out the window. “It’s pretty late.”

“But this is your home,” Other-Father reminds him as Sherlock pushes back from the table.

Sherlock hesitates, staring at this duplicate of his father. When he leaves here and goes back to reality, Father will still be dead, Mummy distant and depressed, Mycroft dismissive. It’s wonderful here, perfect, but it’s not real, he tells himself. It’s not real and he can’t dream forever.

“I think I’d better get back to my other family. My real family.” They all frown at his words. “I’d better get to bed,” Sherlock insists, almost unable to believe he’s saying the words.

“Of course, dear,” Other-Mummy quickly agrees, ushering him out of the room with the others following behind. “It’s all just a dream,” she says, but in the tone of voice that she’s humouring him. His brow furrows.

“You’ll see it all more clearly in the morning,” Other-Father adds.

“Goodnight, little brother,” Other-Mycroft says as they reach the second floor, and goes to his own bedroom.

Sherlock’s reply is lost in a gasp as his own bedroom door opens in front of him. This room has the same layout as his usual bedroom, and yet it is completely different. Instead of beige, his walls are a deep blue, the ceiling glinting with what look like real stars, the night sky twinkling above him. There’s a low buzzing sound, and Sherlock sees several fat bees flying lazily around the room, escaped from their framed container. A honey bee floats by Sherlock’s face, and a very high pitched “Hello, Sherlock!” bursts out of it. His violin seems to be playing itself, and in the corner of his room, the skeleton is doing a little jig.

“It’s a night for dancing!” the skeleton greets him. “I can feel it in my _bones_.”

Instead of a lava lamp, Sherlock has a lava aquarium that goes from floor to ceiling, its undulating wax blobs illuminated by a pulsing red light. There’s an entire chemistry set against the wall with windows, and Sherlock can feel his jaw hanging open. Other-Father groans at the skeleton’s joke, but Sherlock is too mesmerized to react.

“Alright, hush now,” Other-Mummy chides the room. “Sherlock needs to get some sleep.”

With her words, the bees return to their container on the wall, the skeleton quiets, the lava lamp dims and the violin sings a low, soothing melody. Sherlock sits on his bed in a trance.

“Wow,” he breathes, tipping his head up to look at the stars above him.

Other-Mummy kneels in front of him and pinches the material of his ripped trousers. “I’ll just stitch this up and they’ll be good as new.” She mends the hole quickly with needle and thread from the pouch in her pocket, then tucks the covers around Sherlock as he settles into bed. Other-Father presses a kiss to his forehead and Sherlock wraps his arms around his neck, one last time.

“Don’t worry, we’ll see each other soon,” Other-Father promises.

Sherlock just nods and closes his eyes, turning his face into his pillow. “Goodnight,” his other-parents whisper, and as the violin trails off into silence, Sherlock sinks into sleep.

An odd squawking noise, similar to that of a crow, wakes Sherlock the next morning. He grumbles and rolls over, snuggling deeper under the covers, and then remembers his dream. He sits up and looks around his room, boring as always, then grabs mini-Sherlock, considering its button eyes. The doll must have inspired his imagination.

In the bathroom he brushes his teeth and changes, but while he’s folding his pajama bottoms he pauses. He shakes out the trousers and inspects the right knee, where he finds neat, delicate stitches holding closed a hole.

“It was real,” Sherlock gasps, rubbing his thumb over the stitches. Then, more loudly, “It was real!”

Shirt still unbuttoned and hair uncombed, Sherlock tears from the bathroom, pyjamas in hand, and pounds on Mycroft’s bedroom door. 

“ _Go away_ ,” comes through the door.

“Mycroft, something amazing happened last night! The secret door, it’s not really bricks on the other side, there’s a tunnel and –”

“ _Piss off, Sherlock, it’s barely six_.”

“It was a whole other world, like this one, but better!” Sherlock continues, unperturbed. “And Father was there –”

Suddenly the door swings open and reveals Mycroft, rumpled and looming. “Our father is dead, Sherlock. It was just a dream.”

Biting the inside of his lip, Sherlock looks down at the stitched trousers. “But look,” he insists, “my pyjamas –”

“Prove nothing,” Mycroft bites out. “And don’t mention it to Mummy, you’ll only upset her.”

The bedroom door closes in his face and Sherlock quivers with rage. With a huff he turns and runs down the stairs, skidding to a stop in front of the little door and throwing it open. Behind the door are – 

“ _What?”_ he exclaims, pressing a hand against the brick wall, feeling the edges for some sort of hidden mechanism, because surely it’s a secret passageway of some kind. But try as he might, he cannot find proof of anything but a blocked off door.

  


“It was so incredibly real, Mummy,” Sherlock tells his mother at the breakfast table, where she munches on a bowl of cold cereal with a textbook open in front of her. Her hair is lank around her pale face, the bruises back under her eyes, which are not buttons but are just as dull. “You were there, only it wasn’t really you, and Mycroft, but not Mycroft… You stitched my pyjamas, see?” He holds them out, but she only glances up for a second before going back to her textbook. Sherlock crosses his arms. “You all had buttons for eyes and we had this huge family dinner with chips and milkshakes…”

“Sounds like you were hungry last night,” she teases, raising her eyes to him. “You must be going through a growth spurt.” 

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t a hunger induced dream, Mummy. Father was there too, listening to the radio and reading a book just like normal…” he trails off as the corners of Mummy’s eyes tighten and her lips pinch.

She gets up suddenly and takes her bowl to the sink, where she washes it briskly. “If you’re so hungry,” she says, “you should go tell your dream to Angelo in apartment C. He’s a bit of a chef you know.”

“I’m not hungry,” he mumbles. “And Mycroft said the neighbours are all mad.”

“Well then they’ll appreciate your dream more than I do,” she snaps, nearly slamming the bowl onto the drying rack. She swipes the textbook off the table and retreats to her study, closing the door to the world. 

Frustrated, Sherlock runs to his room and grabs his backpack, throwing in mini-Sherlock and his violin, and stuffing the death-Frisbee hat on his head. He stalks out the front door and is about to head for the trees when a familiar squawk catches his attention. The window to apartment A is open a crack, and just inside sits a colourful parrot, watching him. Sherlock approaches slowly, eyeing the bird, which preens its feathers. It cocks its head at him and squawks, “Door!”

“You’re the one that keeps waking me up,” Sherlock realizes.

The door to the apartment swings open to reveal the lady who waved at the mover that first day. When she sees Sherlock, she smiles and ushers him into the apartment, ignoring his protests.

“Oh, you must be Sherlock, the younger!” she greets him, and then, redundantly: “Do come in, do come in.”

Something in the apartment smells odd, but Sherlock can’t quite identify it. “I was just admiring your parrot,” he says politely, shedding his coat and shoes. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Oh, no, no, not at all, not at all,” the woman says. “I’m Martha Hudson. Or just Mrs. Hudson if you like.” She leads him down the hallway towards the basement stairs, but the parrot gives a screech. “Oh, for the love of…” Mrs. Hudson turns back and holds out an arm for the bird, which flaps its large wings and settles onto her arm. “This damn thing,” Mrs. Hudson complains, heading back for the stairs. “Wakes me up at all hours, but Beth loves the bloody pest. Of course his shrieking never bothers _her_ …”

As they descend the stairs, the smell suddenly intensifies, and Sherlock is able to identify it. He chuckles in shock. There are several potted plants around the apartment, all in various states of dying, but there’s only one plant that the occupants care about, Sherlock thinks. 

Sitting on a couch smoking a joint is a second woman, supposedly Beth, who quickly discards the illicit shag when she sees them. Her hands burst into a flurry of motion and Sherlock realizes that the woman is deaf.

“This is my sister, Bethany Sissons,” Mrs. Hudson tells him, signing back to her sister and upsetting the parrot, which jostles on her arm. “She’s quite deaf as you can see. Meningitis as a child.”

Mrs. Sissons smiles and waves at Sherlock, who nods back. His knowledge of sign language is limited to the vowels of the alphabet, and he glances at Mrs. Hudson, unsure. “Nice to meet you,” he says, and notices that, while she is looking at his face, Mrs. Sissons does not look him in the eyes.

She smiles and signs something in return, which Mrs. Hudson translates, though Sherlock thinks he gets the gist: “She says it’s nice to meet you, too.”

“She can read lips?” Sherlock realizes, curious.

“Oh, yes, quite well, in fact,” Mrs. Hudson agrees. “She’s had most of her life to practice after all.” 

Mrs. Sissons offers him a plate of cookies, then, which her sister snatches from her. “Not _those_ , Beth! These cookies are old,” she explains, while Sherlock tries not to laugh. They look quite fresh actually, but Sherlock manages not to comment. The parrot finally loses patience with his ride and takes off, flapping his wings in Sherlock’s face before settling on the back of the couch behind Mrs. Sissons instead. Mrs. Sissons scratches its head and the bird nuzzles into her hand. “Let me make you a fresh batch. What do you like, chocolate chip?”

“I’m quite alright,” Sherlock declines.

“ _Door_ ,” the parrot croons.

“Some tea at least. I won’t be a moment, please sit, sit.” Mrs. Hudson flutters her hands at him until he sits in a lumpy armchair across from Mrs. Sissons, then hurries back upstairs.

Sherlock looks around the room, at the various gardening detritus, the lace doilies, the photographs on the walls. There’s a thick, pink carpet under his feet that he caresses with his socked toes. 

“Liiiittle,” the parrot caws, “door.”

Sherlock narrows his eyes at the bird. Is that the only thing it can say? Mrs. Sissons is watching him with glassy eyes, but her relaxed smile has faded, her brow furrowing slightly. Sherlock looks back at her, not sure what to do. He realizes he’s still wearing the deer-stalker and quickly takes it off, fidgeting with it in his lap. 

The parrot nuzzles against Mrs. Sisson’s hair, playing with her hair with his beak, and, right by her unhearing ear, squawks, “Door!”

Mrs. Sissons leans across the low table between them and takes Sherlock’s hand. Shocked, Sherlock tries to pull away, but Mrs. Sissons makes a stern clucking sound and he subsides, watching with wide eyes as the deaf woman pores over his palm. You can tell a lot about a person by their hands, Sherlock knows, but he doesn’t get the sense that she is seeing what he would. 

“Here we are,” Mrs. Hudson announces, coming down the stairs with a tray of tea, sugar and milk. She frowns when she sees her sister with her nose nearly touching Sherlock’s palm. “Oh, Beth!” She puts down the tray and signs quickly at her sister, who waves at her distractedly. 

Mrs. Sissons releases his hand at last in order to reply, and Sherlock sits back in relief and confusion. 

“You don’t know anything,” Mrs. Hudson says, for Sherlock’s benefit, as she signs. “All you’ve done is frighten the boy.”

“No, I’m alright,” Sherlock says automatically. “What’s she saying?”

Mrs. Sissons slouches back in the couch with a pout, which looks odd on a woman her age, and Mrs. Hudson sighs. She goes about pouring the tea, and stirs in sugar but no milk without asking, handing the cup to Sherlock. Surprised, Sherlock takes a sip, finding it exactly how he likes it.

“Oh, how rude of me, I forgot to ask how you take your tea,” Mrs. Hudson frets.

“No, it’s perfect,” Sherlock tells her, baffled. 

Biting her lip, Mrs. Hudson prepares two more cups of tea and settles on the couch next to her sister. “Sometimes I just get lucky with things like that,” she admits, taking a sip. “Beth, she claims that since she lost her hearing, she can see things better. See things no one else can see. Of course, she lost her favourite bracelet just the other day, which really doesn’t support her claim…”

Sherlock raises an eyebrow, glancing at Mrs. Sissons who stares intently at him over the rim of her cup. 

“It’s ridiculous, I know,” Mrs. Hudson agrees.

Mrs. Sissons puts down her cup and signs at her sister, gestures sharp and forceful. 

“What’s she saying?” Sherlock presses.

Mrs. Hudson makes an exasperated sound. “She seems to think there is some danger in your future. It surrounds you like a cloud, and your hands make it clear.”

“My hands?” Sherlock puts down his tea and looks at his hands, which look the same as always. “What about them?”

“The lines are all wrong, she says.”

Mrs. Sissons nods firmly and goes back to her tea, satisfied. 

Utterly confused, Sherlock glances between the sisters. 

“Door,” the parrot squawks.

“It’s all rubbish if you ask me, dear,” Mrs. Hudson says with a shrug.

Standing up, Sherlock puts his hat back on. “Well, thank you for the tea, Mrs. Hudson, Mrs. Sissons.”

“Oh, of course, it was no trouble at all. We don’t get many visitors.”

“Obviously,” Sherlock mutters under his breath. “I’d best get going.”

“Alright, I’ll see you out,” Mrs. Hudson says, getting to her feet, but Sherlock shakes his head.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure I can find my way.”

As he walks up the stairs, the parrot’s voice follows him, its words long and drawn out: “ _Noooo liiittle door_.”

Almost tripping on the steps, Sherlock nearly runs out of the house, pausing on the porch outside. “What a bunch of high lunatics,” he mutters. His stomach rumbles and he looks across the porch, considering. He missed breakfast, and Mummy said Angelo is a chef… With a shrug he heads for apartment C. “Might as well get the whole set over with.”

He knocks on apartment C’s door and waits. There’s no response, so after a minute Sherlock knocks again. He’s about to knock a third time when the door swings open, the entrance filled with the considerable height and girth of Angelo. 

“Vieni! Come in, quickly!” he orders with a slight Italian accent, disappearing back into the house. “My soufflé is about ready!”

Sherlock follows at a more sedate pace, peeking into rooms as they pass. In the bathroom, a container of jewelry catches his eye, and he notices, amongst the masculine rings and watches, a dainty charm bracelet, definitely a woman’s. He purses his lips, wondering if Mrs. Sisssons would recognize it. 

He eventually enters a kitchen, where it looks like a cake bomb has gone off. There is flour everywhere and egg shells cracked on the floor. Bowls and measuring cups, mixers and graters cover the countertops, cheese and herbs and various vegetables strewn across the kitchen table. There are several empty wine bottles on the floor.

There’s a filthy looking radio by the oven, which Angelo turns to an opera channel, and immediately begins singing along, making Sherlock jump. His voice is not grating, but loud in the small kitchen, as he pulls on an oven mitt and pulls out a small casserole dish with a swelling mushroom cap of bread.

Angelo sprinkles on a little cheese and places the steaming soufflé on the crowded kitchen table, then pulls out a chair, insisting Sherlock to take a seat. A spoon is thrust into his hand and Angelo watches, breath bated, as Sherlock scoops into the already deflating soufflé, blows on the spoonful to cool it, and takes a bite. 

The flavour is a little bland, despite the cheese, with a vague hint of zucchini, and the texture a little leathery. Sherlock swallows heavily. “It’s…good. A bit…chewy,” he admits.

With a frown, Angelo takes the spoon out of his hand and scoops himself a piece, which he chews thunderously. He grimaces as he swallows and snatches the dish off of the table, throwing the whole thing in the garbage with an exclamation of disgust. 

“My fourteenth soufflé and still not perfect!” he growls and begins pacing the kitchen. “I should just stick to spaghetti! Why did I ever think I could be a chef?”

At a loss, Sherlock stands. “Look, it wasn’t that bad,” he offers. “Maybe soufflés just aren’t your thing.”

“Soufflés are the benchmark of a good chef,” he argues, sounding as if he is quoting someone.

“Soufflés are boring.”

Angelo doesn’t appear to be listening, stalking around the kitchen and making more of a mess. “I told them when I left that I would make something of myself. An honest man, with an honest career, and I’d sleep well at night. But look at me, I am a fraud! Nothing but spaghetti and ravioli and linguini.”

Sherlock watches this rant in consternation, thinking the dramatic opera music works well in the background.

“ _Ma_ no! I will not give up!” He advances on Sherlock. “I am not ready yet, but tomorrow! Tomorrow, _si_ , I will be ready.” He pushes Sherlock out of the kitchen and into the hallway. “Come back tomorrow and I will make you a dish so delicious you will weep over your plate!” he promises. 

As they pass the bathroom on the way out, Sherlock resists the pressure at his back. “Where did you get that bracelet?” he asks, pointing to the little container of jewelry on the bathroom counter.

The big man stops, too, glancing into the bathroom and then narrowing his eyes at Sherlock. “You are a curious boy, aren’t you. Curiosity killed the mouse, is the expression, no?”

“No, actually –”

Angelo sushes him suddenly and brings a hand to his own ear. “Do you hear that?”

Listening intently, Sherlock shakes his head. “What?” he whispers.

A finger to his lips, Angelo beckons him to the corner of the sitting room and points. There, sneaking along the wall, is a mouse, sniffing its way towards a mouse trap, upon which a block of cheese sits.

“Italian cheese – they can’t resist,” Angelo murmurs gleefully. “You see, Sherlock, curiosity is not always a good thing to have.”

The mouse sniffs delicately around the trap, takes a nibble of the cheese. Then it makes its fatal mistake: it places a tiny paw on the cheese and the mechanism releases, the tightly coiled metal bar swinging down with a snap. 

Sherlock flinches as the mouse’s neck breaks instantly.

“I’m much smarter than a mouse,” he tells Angelo, who approaches the trap.

“Perhaps,” Angelo grants, and Sherlock bristles. “But not all traps are as simple as this one.” The chef lifts the trap with his thumb and forefinger, displaying the dead mouse hanging from the neck. With the trap held gingerly in one hand, Angelo returns to the bathroom and retrieves the bracelet. Sherlock watches carefully as the chef then turns to him, wondering if this is some sort of threat. Instead, Angelo holds out the delicate charm bracelet. “It belongs to Bethany Hudson in apartment A. I found it under the porch steps this morning. You may return it to her right away.”

The man’s expression is mildly offended, obviously aware of what Sherlock was accusing him of in his thoughts, but rather than feeling chastised, Sherlock nearly sighs in disappointment. It would have been so much more _interesting_ if Angelo were secretly a kleptomaniac.

Taking the bracelet and placing it in one of the zippered pockets on his backpack, Sherlock allows Angelo to usher him out the door. 

“Remember!” Angelo insists as Sherlock steps onto the porch. “Tomorrow, you come to me, and your taste buds will sing and your tear ducts will cry!” He shuts the door with a bang.

“Wow,” Sherlock mutters to himself, with no intention of ever going back. “They really are all mad.” 

A thick layer of fog has slithered over the ground while he was inside, obscuring everything from the shins down. He’s just stepping off the porch when he hears the distinctive shuffle of boots on dirt and he smirks. Affecting nonchalance, Sherlock ambles towards the noise and past it, then when he hears movement behind him, quickly turns and shoves. John stumbles back, arms pin-wheeling, but he does not lose his footing.

“Hey!” he exclaims in outrage.

“This is the third time in as many days that I’ve caught you stalking me,” Sherlock accuses, crossing his arms.

“Okay, okay, yes, I was following you, but I’m not a stalker,” John admits, hands raised. “I need your help with something.” 

“Where’s your mangy cat?”

John walks over to his own backpack and stoops to pick it up, a loud, disgruntled meowing coming from within when he hefts it on his back. “The fog makes his fur puff up – he hates it,” John explains.

Sherlock scoffs but follows as John begins walking. “What a pathetic excuse for a wild animal.”

“Oi, leave off, what’s he ever done to you?”

Sherlock rolls his eyes and they walk in silence for a moment, both of them watching their feet through the fog. “So, you just _found_ that doll, the one that looks like me?”

“Oh, yeah,” John says, distracted. “I was looking for an old jumper and I found the doll instead. It looked ancient – probably as old as the Pink Palace.”

“Hm,” Sherlock hums skeptically. “And what did you mean, about your grandma not renting to people with kids? Seems like a dumb rule to keep seeing as it eliminates over half your potential tenants.”

“Here’s good,” John decides, ignoring him, as they walk into a small clearing. 

Scowling, Sherlock crosses his arms. “You’re just like everyone else – no one ever listens to me.”

John makes a vague agreeing sound and sets his backpack on the ground carefully and unzips it. The cat’s head pokes out suspiciously, then pops back in. John reaches into the backpack and pulls out a video camera. “Do you mind?” he asks, thrusting the camera into Sherlock’s hands. “I need you to film me.”

Grimacing as he adjusts his grip, Sherlock watches as John jogs a short distance away. He’s wearing running shoes and shorts, Sherlock realizes. “What for?”

Jumping up and down on the spot, John tells him, “I’m trying out for the rugby team in the fall, so I need to practice. I want to watch the videos after to improve my form. Ready?”

Sherlock presses the record button with a sigh. Sports, how dull. He follows John with the camera as the boy sprints back and forth, about a fifty metre distance, changing his stride occasionally. At one point he does these odd, leaping runs that make him look ridiculous, and Sherlock can’t help but chuckle. 

In truth, John is quite fast, and even with his limited rugby knowledge, Sherlock cannot imagine the younger boy having much trouble getting on the team. 

After nearly ten minutes of running, John walks towards Sherlock, breathing heavily, and takes back the camera.

“These look good,” he says approvingly.

“Okay, I’ve helped you,” Sherlock snipes. “So answer my question.”

John looks baffled. “What question?”

“Why doesn’t your grandmother rent to people with kids?” Sherlock growls, exasperated.

“Oh, that.” He massages the back of his neck with one hand, the other still holding the video camera. “I can’t believe you were in Angelo’s apartment – did he try to force-feed you one of his experiments? You know, he made us cookies back when he first moved in – they were the worst things I’ve ever tasted. How can you get cookies wrong? You just follow the recipe!”

Fighting for patience, Sherlock grits his teeth. “I don’t think he follows any recipe except his own. What has this got to do with –”

“Shut up, I’m getting to that,” John says, closing the video camera. “He invited us over for dinner once, but grandma wouldn’t let me or Harry go – I’ve never even been inside the Pink Palace.”

“Really?” Sherlock raises his eyebrows. “Never?”

“Grandma seems to think it’s dangerous.” He shrugs and puts the camera back in his bag. The fog has dissipated somewhat, so the cat deigns to brave the world and step out of the backpack. 

“How so?”

“Well, Grandma used to have a twin sister, but she disappeared when they were kids.”

“She ran away,” Sherlock offers.

Another shrug. “Maybe. But grandma claims she was stolen.” He makes air quotation marks as he says the last word.

Pursing his lips, Sherlock takes the doll out of his backpack, considering it. “Abduction without a trace? That doesn’t seem likely.”

The cat makes a growling noise, and Sherlock finds it glaring at him.

“Look, I’m gonna go and watch these videos,” John says, shouldering his backpack and scooping up the cat. 

“Wait, I still have questions!”

“Thanks for your help,” John ignores him. He walks behind a tree and pulls out his bike, which he must have stashed before coming to find Sherlock, and takes off. “See you ‘round!” he throws over his shoulder.

  


That night, Sherlock is so eager to conduct his experiment that he changes into pyjamas right after dinner and says goodnight nearly before the sun goes down. Mummy actually asks him if he’s feeling ill and Mycroft rolls his eyes.

Before crawling into bed, Sherlock places the cube of cheese he nicked from the kitchen just inside his cracked open door. He feigns sleep for so long that he actually ends up dozing by accident, until, once everyone else has gone to bed, a little squeak has him bolting up. The mouse bolts and Sherlock is running after it before making the conscious decision to do so, out of his room, down the hallway, down the stairs and into the living room. He skids to a stop and throws open the little door with a grin, crawling after the mouse through the tunnel that has magically reappeared.

Just like the first time, the air seems to hum with energy, the tunnel almost like a living thing as it pulses with aquamarine and sapphire and indigo. Anticipation energizes him and when he pushes through the door at the end, he’s nearly breathless. 

This time, the sound of familiar laughter pulls him to the kitchen, where he finds Other-Mummy and Other-Father in the process of mixing batter, a smudge of whipped cream on Other-Mummy’s cheek. Other-Father is leaning into her, playfully trying to lick it off while she fends him off with a spatula. 

When Sherlock enters the kitchen, they turn to him and smile, Other-Father wrapping an arm around her waist.

“Sherlock, dear,” she greets him. “Welcome back! Would you like to lick off the batter?” She holds out the spatula to him.

For a moment he just stands there, appreciating the sight of his parents together and happy. “That’s alright – Father loves raw batter even more than I do, he can have it.”

“Our son is a genius!” Other-Father declares, and with a wink, takes the spatula and takes a big lick of the chocolate batter.

Other-Mummy puts her hands on Sherlock’s shoulders and kisses his curls, making him squirm in protest even as a smile tugs at his lips. “This cake is for you, to show you how glad we are that you’re back.”

“I was only gone twenty-four hours!”

“And what a dull twenty-four hours they were,” Other-Father tells him, throwing the spatula in the sink behind him and squeezing Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock can’t remember the last time he’s been touched so much.

“We still have to put the cake in the oven,” Other-Mummy tells him, leading him to the door, “but while we wait for it to bake you can go play with your friend”.

“Friend?” 

“Yes, John is quite excited to see you.”

She opens the door to reveal John Watson standing on the porch outside, but instead of earnest blue eyes are coal black buttons. The boy smiles in greeting.

“Oh, great,” Sherlock mutters, “Another Johnny Boy. Even here I’ve got my own personal, nosy stalker.”

Rather than reply, Other-John just tilts his head and shrugs, smile still in place.

“Nothing to say for yourself?”

Moving to stand behind Other-John, Other-Mummy places her hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I know how much John’s incessant chatter irks you, so I fixed him.”

Something cold slithers down Sherlock’s spine. “He can’t talk?”

“Nope,” she smiles, patting the boy’s head. “He’s a great listener.”

Tilting his head, Sherlock purses his lips. “True.” John doesn’t seem to be upset, in fact he seems genuinely pleased to see Sherlock. “You know, I think I like it.”

She beams at him. “I thought you would. Now go have some fun before dinner – I think your brother has a special game planned for you.”

“You mean my other brother.”

“Your better brother, dear.” She gives him one more peck on the head and shoos the two boys out the door, into the warm night air.

“The stars here are incredible,” Sherlock observes as they walk around the house, Other-John leading the way. The younger boy tilts his head up and nods, a look of awe on his face. Sherlock’s lips twist. “It didn’t hurt, did it? When she –”

“Ahoy there!” comes a shout and Sherlock freezes to the spot.

In the backyard, where there ought to be a scummy fountain and a dead garden, is an ocean.

Gaping unattractively but unable to help it, Sherlock can see the other boy laughing silently out of the corner of his eye, but cannot spare the attention to care. The fountain, it seems, has multiplied in volume at least fifty times, and there in front of them, with a plank for them to climb, is a real life pirate ship. With the skull flag flapping high above him, Other-Mycroft stands on the deck and waves.

“Make haste and come on up!” he calls.

“Oh, my God,” Sherlock breathes, drinking in the sight with his eyes: the rigging, the planks, the black sails, the gun ports... “This is amazing.”

Other-John nods enthusiastically and grabs his hand, tugging him along as he runs up the plank to the deck.

“Welcome aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge,” Other-Mycroft greets them. “Here.” 

“Blackbeard’s ship,” Sherlock whispers reverently, accepting the black hat, coat, sword and boots, which feel much more dignified than his pyjamas. 

“Duplicated perfectly, down to the last splinter,” Other-Mycroft agrees.

Insistent tapping against his arm pulls Sherlock’s attention, and the other boy points out into the distance, where a small island has appeared. Searching his coat pockets, Sherlock pulls out a monocular and squints through it, something shiny catching on the magnified island catching his eye.

“There’s something on that island!” Sherlock exclaims, grinning. “Looks like treasure.”

A small hand pats his shoulder and Other-John gently nudges the monocular, aiming it at the stretch of water between the ship and the island. The ocean there is choppier, the occasional fin flitting out into the air. “You’re right, there is something there.”

“Sharks?” Other-Mycroft wonders.

“Or worse,” Sherlock breathes. He lowers the monocular and finds Other-John’s puzzled face. “Mermaids.”

The boy’s eyes go wide.

Grinning, Sherlock strides across the deck, his boots clacking satisfyingly against the planks with each step, and eyes the large, wooden wheel. 

“Wouldn’t it be prudent to simply go around?” Other-Mycroft whinges, gripping the railing.

Sherlock shakes his head. “That will take much too long. The only way is forward.” He takes hold of the wheel. The moment his skin touches the polished wood, the ship lurches forward, wailing gusts of wind billowing in the large sails. They all stumble, grabbing on to railings and rigging for balance, and Sherlock tightens his grip on the wheel, steering the vessel straight towards the treasure island.

“This is amazing!” he shrieks into the wind, eyes wide with exhilaration.

“Mummy said you’d like it,” Mycroft yells back. “She knows you better than you know yourself.”

Keeping their heading true, Sherlock shouts orders at his shipmates, who scramble to do as they’re told. The ship rocks under the power of wind and waves, sails flapping and beams creaking. The overflowing treasure chest seems to glow on the looming island, a beacon in the night sky. Droplets of briny water shower Sherlock’s face as the ship hits choppy water, causing the young captain to blink against the sting, then suddenly the ocean calms. Unnerved, the three shipmates look at each other, listening as the ship drifts through eerily still waters, the wind humming in their ears.

Moving to lean over the starboard railing, they look out over the sky’s reflection, looking for a wave or imperfection. Other-John gasps and points, but by the time Sherlock’s eyes snap in the right direction, all he sees is a ripple. 

“What did you –” Sherlock’s hiss cuts off, his heart pounding, as a thrilling sound reaches his ears.

Floating up to them like mist on the ocean comes a single, clear voice, singing a tone so pure Sherlock’s eyes prickle. There’s another ripple in the ocean and Sherlock nearly falls overboard as he tries to see more clearly, all his senses straining. Mere metres from the ship, a fin peaks out of the water before disappearing again, drawing their eyes to the shimmering scales just under the surface. Sherlock’s gaze follows the tail until it merges with human flesh, a strong torso and flowing gold hair.

A head pops out of the water and Sherlock gapes in wonder at the magnificent creature, something he’s only ever seen in storybooks, though usually with soft features and bulbous breasts. 

The man gazes up at Sherlock with emerald button eyes, the sharp, exotic angles of his face glinting with water. The skin on the sides of his neck flutters and then stills as his gills close against the dry air, the defined muscles of his arms and torso working as he treads. Around him, the water roils with the current created by his immense tail, which undulates slowly beneath him.

Sherlock is bewitched by his beauty.

Pleased by his reaction, the merman opens his smirking mouth and sings louder, with no discernable melody, only hypnotic, lilting tones. He tilts his head coquettishly then lays a hand on the ship’s hull and, with an inhuman strength, begins climbing up the side of the boat. His fingers end in tapered claws, which bury themselves in the wood, and between each finger is a fleshy webbing, at which Sherlock stares with fascination. It isn’t until his shipmates take cautious steps backwards that he realizes the merman has pulled himself all the way up to the railing, his heavy tail dripping beneath him. Leaning back himself, Sherlock freezes when a damp, cool hand finds his cheek, curious fingers stroking along his nose and lips and brow, that clear tone changing to a pleased rumble, deep in the merman’s gilled throat.

“Incredible,” Sherlock breathes, reaching out with trembling fingers to touch and stopping an inch away from the damp skin. His whole body feels hot and shaky, and when the merman bares pointed, shark-like teeth, the odd tension in his groin shoots through his chest with his alarm.

The stillness snaps as the merman lunges for his throat. Sherlock jerks back, but is seized by strong claws, held in place, unable to move, trapped. In his peripheral vision, Sherlock sees John jump forward, then a heavy oar slams into the merman’s face, the force enough to send the creature flailing back, losing his grip and falling into the ocean with an enormous splash. The water seems to erupt then, as an army of the creatures dive towards the ship, arms reaching and teeth flashing.

“Let’s go!” Mycroft shouts, pulling them back from the railing.

The ship picks up speed suddenly, slicing through the water and separating the pod of mer-creatures, whose screeches and odd huffing clicks accompany the sound of cracking wood as they claw at the ship’s hull.

Sherlock laughs a little hysterically as he grabs the wheel again, hair standing on end and feet braced wide for balance. The ship seems to have a mind of its own, and he does nothing but hold the wheel steady as it ploughs forward, reaching the little island in no time at all.

“Come on, John, there’s no time to lose!” Sherlock shouts and the two boys quickly climb halfway down the ladder over the side of the ship before dropping to the sand at a run. The treasure chest is heavy and spilling with gold coins, and the moment they manage to lift it between the two of them, the mer-creatures pop their heads out of the water to watch, their teeth gnashing. The island seems to be off limits to them and Sherlock exchanges an exhilarated grin with John before they dash back to the ship, climbing up with Mycroft’s help.

Defeated, the mer-creatures’ enraged screeches change to mournful cries, but they do not attack the ship again, instead slipping back under the waves, leaving the ocean as calm as ever. The ship turns around and heads back of its own accord, allowing the boys to turn their attention to the locked chest. John holds out his hand and raises his eyebrows, looking at Sherlock’s sword, which the older boy relinquishes out of curiosity. With a smile, John nudges Sherlock back and swings the sword down at the lock, snapping it open with a loud clatter.

Dropping to his knees, Sherlock slowly opens the lid, conscious of John and Mycroft leaning over his shoulders. His eyes widen as his face is bathed in gold light, coins and rubies and gems reflecting moonlight at him, stacks of letters and papers, an old pipe, a tin of chewing tobacco… 

By the time they’ve gone through all of it, the ship has returned to the fountain’s edge, the house once again in view, and Sherlock and John are giggling as they garnish each other with necklaces and crowns and rings.

“That was amazing!” Sherlock exclaims as he runs into the house, where his other parents greet him. “The ship was incredibly accurate, and Mycroft let me use a sword, and there were these _creatures,_ like mermaids but not boring and pretty, and we found a treasure chest, and John broke the lock with the sword –” he rambles, unable to curb his excitement, but his smiling parents just usher him into the kitchen, where an enormous cake sits on the table. “Wow.”

“I’m so glad to hear you had fun,” Other-Mummy says, leading him to the table. The cake is so large, Sherlock nearly has to stand on his tiptoes to get a good look at the top, and as he watches, a ring of lit candles pop up along the edge of the cake, the words ‘Welcome Home Sherlock’ writing themselves in blue icing.

Something about the phrasing makes Sherlock’s stomach twinge with discomfort, but then he looks up. All around the table are the smiling faces of John and his family, and though their eyes are different, they’ve shown him more kindness each time he has come to this otherworld than he’s received in months.

He smiles back at them and blows out the candles.

  


Eventually it is late enough that even Sherlock has to admit he’s tired, and he says goodnight to everyone. Before letting him go, John quickly leans forward and gives him a shy peck on the cheek, which leaves Sherlock in a daze the whole way to his bedroom. The skeleton does a little shimmy in greeting and the bees hum happily, but they settle as Father tucks Sherlock into bed. Before he can leave, Sherlock grips his wrist with a silent plea, and Father settles in the chair beside his bed, stroking a hand through his son’s hair. 

“I was wondering,” he begins quietly, “if you’d be willing to play something for me.”

Pushing himself to sitting, Sherlock accepts the violin case his father hands to him, snapping open the clasps and stroking the instrument with hesitant fingers.

“I haven’t really played in ages,” Sherlock admits in a whisper. “Not since…”

“I’d love to hear you.” His eyes are as earnest and compassionate as ever. Father never did try to hide his emotions.

With a nod, Sherlock takes out the violin and his bow, sitting up straight and putting everything into position, fingertips on strings, bow resting on the waist, chin rest tucked under his jaw. He closes his eyes and slows his breath, then, without too much thought, begins to play. 

At first he is shaky, the notes hesitant and uneven, but when he opens his eyes and sees his father sitting there, nodding along with the rhythm, and everything just slides into place. The music comes easily then, almost like the instrument is playing itself, the melody effortless, the tone joyous, and by the time he’s finished he has tears in his eyes.

Embarrassed, he quickly puts the violin away and wipes at his eyes, but Father just pulls him into a hug, his low ‘thank you’ rumbling where Sherlock’s ear is pressed to his chest.

Sherlock’s smiling that night as he falls asleep.

  


When he wakes up in the morning to grey walls and a cracked ceiling, it feels like a punch in the stomach.

  


“It was incredibly real,” Sherlock tells Mycroft over breakfast, talking too much to bother eating. His backpack is mostly empty today, with just his Frisbee hat and a wallet with some cash, leaving space in preparation for their outing to the library. He left mini-Sherlock at his bedside after waking up. “There was an exact replica of Blackbeard’s ship and these man-eating mermaids. And everyone was there, even John – the only one that was missing was Redbeard…”

“Eat your eggs,” Mycroft orders, taking his own plate to the sink. 

Sherlock scowls. “You aren’t even listening to me.”

“I’ve heard everything about your fantastic dreams,” Mycroft argues, turning on the sink. “Sounds to me like that novel you’re currently reading is affecting your imagination.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sherlock mutters, slouching in his seat.

With an unconvinced hum, Mycroft places his plate on the drying rack. “Eat your breakfast or we’re not going,” he warns, and leaves the kitchen.

  


“So what did you want to get from the library?” Mycroft questions him as they drive, the gravel road bumpy under the car tyres.

“A book.”

Sherlock can practically hear him rolling his eyes. 

“Yes, but which book, precisely?”

“A book on BSL,” Sherlock admits, looking out his window and watching as the tiny excuse for a town become visible in the distance.

“Sign language?” Mycroft exclaims, surprised. “So you may communicate with the deaf neighbour? Whatever for?”

He’s only partially correct, but Sherlock doesn’t bother explaining. “Unlike you, I’m stuck here in this wretched place, and learning British Sign Language is less boring than doing nothing.”

Sherlock watches out of the corner of his eye as Mycroft’s lips twist. “I’m not abandoning you,” he says quietly and Sherlock snorts.

“You are, though. You’re going back to uni and leaving me alone in this boring town, in that boring house, and a boring school.”

“You won’t be alone,” Mycroft protests.

“Yes,” Sherlock says firmly, “I will be. But it’s no matter – I like being alone. Alone protects me.”

They are silent the rest of the way there, and once they reach the pathetic library, Sherlock leaves Mycroft to deal with the tedious task of setting up a library card while he goes on the hunt for the languages section. The library’s selection of Sign Language books is pitifully small, but as Sherlock is a beginner, he decides to make do with a text titled Basics of British Sign Language, and by the time he’s returned to the front desk Mycroft is finally receiving a library card.

“Is there anything else you need while we’re here?” Mycroft asks him as they leave, eyeing a little patisserie across the street.

“No. I want to go back now,” he says imperiously, and Mycroft sighs but climbs back into the car.

It’s not until they’ve driven out of town again that Mycroft speaks.

“She just needs time,” he says. “Time to grieve. To get better.”

Clenching his jaw, Sherlock turns toward his window, watching the gravel road fly by beneath them. When he looks at the trees in the distance, it looks like they’re barely moving. It’s all just perspective, he knows.

She’s not there anymore, he doesn’t say. 

She abandoned me, he doesn’t say.

What if she doesn’t get better, he doesn’t say.

“She’s had time,” he retorts.

  


With the book in his backpack, the first thing Sherlock does when they get to the apartment is find the little door, but when he tries to open it, it doesn’t budge.

“You locked it?” Sherlock cries, outraged.

Mycroft crosses his arms and looks down his nose at him. It’s infuriating. “You won’t stop talking about those ridiculous dreams. Maybe this will help you face reality and stop playing make-believe.”

“How did you even get the key? It was in my trouser pocket in my room!”

“Yes, not terribly imaginative a hiding spot.”

Sherlock growls in irritation and is about to form a scathing retort when a horrible sound comes from the office.

Turning his head, Sherlock moves automatically towards the office, where Mummy’s sobbing can be heard through the door, but Mycroft’s fat hand pulls him back.

“You’ll only upset her more,” he scolds, and enters the office himself.

Seething, Sherlock stands rooted to the spot, hands clenched, eyes stinging. He hates this, hates everything. He hates Mycroft for acting superior and treating Sherlock like a child. He hates Mummy for always being sad, for not being there when he needs her, for making it feel like he’s lost both parents rather than just one. He hates that he can’t do anything to make it better. 

Sniffling, Sherlock grabs the coat Mycroft left on the kitchen chair and riffles through the pockets until he finds the key. Shouldering his backpack more firmly into place, Sherlock lowers himself to his knees in front of the little door and slots the key into place on the third try, his hands are shaking so badly. When at last he throws the door open, blue light and a warm breeze wash over him, and Sherlock bares his teeth in satisfaction.

“I knew it was real,” he hisses.

Leaving the key in the lock, he crawls through the tunnel as quickly as he can, pushing the second door open and nearly stumbling into the kitchen in his haste. There’s a note on top of a small box on the table and a plate of cupcakes to greet him. Munching on a carrot cupcake, he reads.

_My Clever Sherlock,_

_Angelo has invited you and John over for lunch and a show and Mrs. Hudson and Mrs. Sissons have an adventure planned for you afterwards. Don’t fill up on too many cupcakes! I hope you like the new scarf I made you._

_Love,_

_Mummy_

Eagerly, Sherlock opens the box and pulls out a luxuriously soft cashmere scarf, made in a deep, royal blue. He rubs the material between his fingers before wrapping it around his neck and huddling into its warmth. Brushing crumbs from his mouth, Sherlock makes his way outside and towards apartment C, but is stopped in his tracks when he nearly trips over a black cat.

“Hey! John’s got a cat identical to you at home. Not the quiet John, the one that talks too much,” Sherlock clarifies, watching as the cat trots its way along the porch and up onto the railing. “You must be the other cat.”

The cat tilts its head at him. “I’m not the other anything,” it argues with a deep voice, and Sherlock can only stare in shock. “I’m the one and only me.” With that, the cat jumps nimbly to the ground and Sherlock scrambles down the porch steps to follow.

The animal’s eyes flash in the moonlight. “You obviously don’t have button eyes, but if you’re the same cat how can you talk? Cats don’t talk,” Sherlock challenges, watching as the feline slinks along the trunk of a fallen tree.

“Oh, really? And you’re the expert on cats, hm?” it retorts smoothly, winding its way through bare branches. “After all, I’m just a mangy, _pathetic_ excuse for a wild animal,” it quotes, tail high in the air.

Sherlock grimaces. “Look, I’m sorry I called you that. I was just trying to annoy John. How did you even get here? Did you follow me through the little door?”

“I have my ways,” the cat says enigmatically, licking a paw. “It’s a game we play, the other mother and I.” Finished with grooming, it creeps into a hole in the tree’s trunk and disappears. When its voice comes from behind him, Sherlock whirls, finding the cat under the porch, as if it transported there. “She hates cats and tries to keep me out, but I come and go as I please.”

“Other Mummy hates cats?” Sherlock repeats dubiously. At home, Mummy is quite fond of cats – Sherlock himself can appreciate cats’ resourcefulness. 

“Not like any _real_ mother I know of.”

“What do you mean?” Sherlock exclaims. “She’s amazing! This place is amazing!”

Baring its teeth at him, the cat hops back onto the porch railing. “Haven’t you noticed the clues? Have you not _observed_? You think this world is a dream come true, but you’re wrong. The _other_ John told me so.”

“That’s mad – the John here can’t talk.”

“Maybe not to you,” the cat retorts, head high and ears flicking. Using the vines winding through the lattice work on the side of the porch, the cat makes its way to the roof. “But cats have senses that are far superior to those of humans and can hear and smell things – did you hear that?”

Crossing his arms, Sherlock glares up at the pest. “What?”

“Right…over…there!” The cat is off like a shot, bolting across the roof in pursuit of a field mouse, no doubt.

Rolling his eyes, Sherlock makes his way to Angelo’s apartment, finding John there waiting for him. Honestly pleased to see him, Sherlock smiles in response to John’s wave of greeting.

“The Angelo at home is a dreadful cook,” Sherlock warns him as they approach the apartment’s door. “He used to be some sort of criminal. Hopefully in this world he can actually make something edible.”

Nodding fervently, John knocks on the door and stands back when it opens on its own. Sharing a glance, the two boys cautiously enter the front hallway, which is dark save for the glowing arrows on the floor, pointing them onwards. As they creep towards the kitchen, the sound of music meets their ears, some sort of rhythmic, atmospheric song. 

With wide eyes, they push open the kitchen door.

The kitchen is gone. In its place is a large stage, the curtains drawn, and in front are two cushioned seats, bearing plaques with their names. With a grin, John eagerly settles in his reserved seat. The moment Sherlock sits beside him, a table rises from the floor in front of them, already bearing plates and glasses and cutlery. 

An electronic menu sits on the table between them, and the two boys drool over the options for a moment before choosing one of everything, eagerly pressing the buttons next to each drink, appetizer, main meal and dessert.

A static sound fills the room as a microphone crackles into life. The stage curtain begins to rise.

_“The average human can comfortably hold their breath for less than a minute.”_ Angelo’s voice booms over hidden speakers. As the curtain rises, an immense, water-filled tank comes into view. “ _Most pass out before two minutes_.”

A basket of hot garlic bread appears on the table, and the boys distractedly begin munching as they watch the stage, riveted. 

The tank’s top is open with a small stage on top, upon which Angelo, or rather an Angelo with buttons for eyes, stands, wrapped in chains. Sherlock gasps in understanding.

_“As you can clearly see, my legs are chained at the ankles, my wrists are chained behind my back, and my arms are chained to my torso.”_ As he speaks, a large television lights up above their heads, zooming in on the three heavy locks binding the man. “ _I will give myself two minutes to pick the three locks.”_

“Forty seconds per lock!” Sherlock hisses to his companion. “That’s mad!”

On the television, a countdown appears, overlaying the image of Angelo.

“ _There is a lock pick held between my heels_.” The camera cuts to a shot of his bare feet, where a thin piece of metal is indeed squeezed tightly between his heels. “ _The countdown will begin the moment I hit the water.”_

“Shouldn’t there be someone standing by with an oxygen mask?” Sherlock mutters to John, who shrugs, an expression of both horror and fascination on his face as he watches. He’s holding a piece of garlic bread, forgotten half way to his mouth, and Sherlock chuckles.

The static sound disappears as the mic turns off, while Angelo appears to be doing some deep breathing exercises. The music surges in volume and tension, with a pounding drumbeat that intensifies with their anticipation. Just as the music swells, the stage floor opens, and Angelo falls into the tank with a splash. 

The camera zooms in on his hands, and Sherlock divides his attention between the television and the stage as Angelo immediately contorts to grasp the lock pick, then sets to work on the lock around his forearms, his wrists bent as his hands awkwardly reach to fit the pick in the lock. 

Hearts pounding, food forgotten, the boys watch as Angelo wriggles and twists the pick, the countdown proceeding with chilling inevitability. The submerged man’s face is calm, his button eyes blank and eyebrows slightly furrowed in concentration. 

This first lock is the trickiest, in Sherlock’s opinion, what with the awkward angle of his wrists. Once he is free of this one, the other two should be easy.

It takes thirty-two seconds for Angelo to release the lock around his forearms, at which point Sherlock relaxes slightly. But then, as Angelo pulls the pick free from the lock, his fingers fumble and he loses hold of the metal piece. 

John’s hand closes around Sherlock’s forearm in reaction, squeezing painfully tight, but neither boy’s gaze wavers from the stage. With a little wriggle of the arm, Sherlock adjusts so he is gripping John’s hand in his own. Both their palms are slightly damp.

As the pick floats freely towards the bottom of the tank, Angelo does not appear to panic, only tilting his head to watch where the pick lands and then picking it up with dexterous toes. The pick is once again transferred to his right hand. The whole fumble cost him eight precious seconds. 

With his wrists free, Angelo is able to wriggle his arms to the front of his body, bending them so he can reach the lock at his waist. That one takes him a further twenty-six seconds to release, then he bends his knees so he can reach the lock at his ankles.

With forty-eight seconds left, air bubbles begin appearing in the water.

“He’s releasing his built-up carbon dioxide,” Sherlock explains and sees John nod out of the corner of his eye.

The lock falls away with thirty-six seconds to spare, and Angelo shoots to the surface for a full, gasping breath of oxygen. Breathing nearly as hard as the chef-turned-escape-artist, Sherlock and John jump to their feet, applauding wildly. Angelo pulls himself back onto the stage, sopping wet, and bows a couple times before grabbing a towel.

_“Grazie! Grazie!”_ he calls as the curtain begins to close. The television goes black and the music changes to a more relaxed song, lights brightening to a dim glow as the boys return to their seats.

The hole in the middle of the table opens again and up rises a plate with a metal lid on it. It is only when John unsuccessfully tries to lift the lid that they notice the small lock. They exchange a curious glance.

Amused chuckling draws their attention and they find Angelo, in dry clothing but with damp hair, approaching them.

“It is time for your lesson, Sherlock,” he declares. A chair rises up from the floor on Sherlock’s side and Angelo takes a seat, pulling out a pouch from his pocket. He opens it to reveal a collection of metal lock picks and Sherlock’s eyes widen.

“I’ve been meaning to teach myself how to lock pick from books and online articles and such,” he admits, leaning closer to eye the metal, “but it is so much better to have an actual teacher.”

“Well you’ve come to the right place!” Angelo exclaims, his booming voice making the boys jump.

The rest of dinner is amazing. Angelo demonstrates all the techniques and tricks to lock picking and lets Sherlock practice on each food tray that arrives, all locked. John, an eager audience, watches Sherlock and happily snacks on each new dish that Sherlock unlocks for him, feeding Sherlock a few bites every time so the novice lock-picker’s hands remain free. 

When they are both nearly too stuffed to move, smears of chocolate on their lips from dessert, Angelo bids them goodnight. 

“The sisters are expecting you any time now,” he tells them, folding up the pouch of picks, which he then hands to Sherlock. “Here, why don’t you take these, so you can practice more on your own.”

With a hesitant, nearly reverent touch, Sherlock takes the pouch. “Thank you,” he says, actually meaning it, and carefully zips away the tools in his backpack. 

John tugs on his hand to lead him away.

  


“I got a book from the library today,” Sherlock tells John as they step out onto the porch. “We should look at it together.”

John quirks a questioning eyebrow at him as they slowly make their way to apartment A.

“It’s a book on British sign language,” Sherlock explains, huddling into his scarf though he isn’t cold. “So that we can communicate.”

Pulling him to a stop, John faces him, brows furrowed. Sherlock can’t tell what he’s thinking, so he swings his backpack around and, after some digging, pulls out the book.

“Look,” he commands, finding the page with the signs for the alphabet and placing the book on the porch so both his hands are free. “This is how to spell your name.” With slow, careful gestures, Sherlock signs John’s name: a sweeping motion of the right index against his left palm for J, a simple touch of his right index to his left ring finger for O, a swipe of the palms for H, and finally his right index and middle fingers touching his other palm for N. 

John’s answering smile is tremulous, but he diligently spells out Sherlock’s name with his hands in return. It’s a small thing, but Sherlock’s chest warms as he watches, and, book safely back in his knapsack, both boys are smiling when Mrs. Hudson opens the door to them.

“Oh, boys!” she cries in greeting, ushering them in. “How lovely it is to see you.”

Mrs. Sissons stands a little behind her sister, her parrot on her shoulder. Sherlock considers getting out the book again so he can sign a proper greeting to her, but before he can move, the deaf woman raises her hands. 

“Hello, Sherlock,” says the parrot.

At his side, he can feel John laughing at his shocked expression and quickly closes his mouth. “Hello,” he returns weakly. 

The parrot nuzzles her ear and Mrs. Sissons smiles at him. Again, her hands move fluidly as she signs and, like a live megaphone, the parrot projects for her. “I still can’t hear you, dear, but I’ve got my friend helping me out.” She pets the parrot once, fondly. “It’s easier this way, isn’t it?”

A frown tugs at Sherlock’s lips. “How so?”

“Well now you don’t need my sister to translate for you,” she tells him, as if it were obvious. 

Something about this leaves a sour taste in his mouth. _I fixed him_ , Other-Mummy said, when she introduced the mute Other-John, his larynx inoperable for Sherlock’s convenience. This trick with the other-parrot is for Sherlock’s convenience, too, he realizes, but he doesn’t really appreciate the modification this time. It seems wrong, somehow, to fix something – someone – that is perfectly functional and content just the way they are. Mrs. Sissons is ‘broken’ perhaps, in the sense that her ears do not hear, but she is still able to communicate, is still aware of her surroundings. Only Sherlock’s ignorance is to blame for his inability to understand the deaf woman, and with a little effort on his part, the obstacle is easily surmountable. The speaking parrot seems like a short-cut, and to make matters worse, this other Mrs. Sissons still can’t hear anything, even though returning her hearing is obviously well within Other-Mummy’s power.

“Well, come along!” Mrs. Hudson insists, interrupting his reflection as she ushers them towards the basement. "We have a bit of a mystery for you!”

Sherlock watches John’s face, wondering how he’ll react to the sickly sweet odour of marijuana, but is distracted half way down the stairs when a different scent reaches his nostrils. Humid and fresh, with the earthy sweetness of soil, Sherlock expects to find a green house in the basement, and instead steps into a rainforest. 

“This is my favourite smell,” the parrot squawks, and Sherlock turns to see Mrs. Sissons take a deep breath, a smile on her lips.

The sounds of chirping birds, wind rustling through leaves and the musical trickling of a hidden stream meet Sherlock’s ears, while an explosion of colour meets his eyes. At first it is so overwhelming, the greens of snaking vines and leaves, the blushing reds of thorns and petals, the blues and purples and yellows of flowers everywhere, that he doesn’t even recognize what he’s seeing. Once his eyes have adjusted, they immediately widen in surprised recognition.

“These are all poisonous.”

John, who is peering closely at a cluster of lavender blooms, leans back abruptly, bumping into Sherlock.

“Those are rhododendrons,” Sherlock informs him, a thread of excitement in his voice. “You can get sick from eating honey made by bees that are feeding on these flowers.” 

“You are just the man we need,” Mrs. Hudson tells him, and hands out a pair of rubber gloves to each of them before leading the way down a little path in the foliage. Sherlock looks around in awe, identifying Foxglove, Poison Oak, Oleander, Rosary Pea, Daphne… Many of the plants would never be found together in the wild, but here, of course, it seems anything is possible. “We found a deer, suffering from some sort of poisoning, but we can’t figure out which plant it ate from!”

Why there would be a deer in this toxic forest Sherlock does not ask. By now he understands that this entire mystery is generated for his entertainment. “What are its symptoms?”

“I’ll let you determine them yourself.”

Sherlock nods. “You’re right. Best not to have any outside theories biasing my judgement.”

They turn a final corner and come upon the poor creature, which is lying on the ground and panting. It is immediately clear that the deer has vomited and it squirms on the ground in discomfort. 

John pushes past Sherlock and crouches by the animal’s head, starting up a string of shushing sounds as he strokes the deer’s neck. At first, Sherlock thinks he is only comforting the animal, but then John beckons him forward, grabs his hand and places it against the deer’s neck.

“Good observation,” Sherlock approves, feeling the blood pumping under the flesh and fur.

“What is it?” the parrot asks for Mrs. Sissons.

“The pulse is very rapid, a bit irregular” Sherlock murmurs, stroking his hands along the deer’s twitching muscles and then opening its mouth to check its teeth, throat and jaw. “Digestive upset, quick, irregular pulse – possibly from fear, but likely a symptom – convulsions, possibly some minor swelling of the throat and tongue, breathing rapid but unimpeded… We can’t really test an animal’s mental state – well, I don’t know how anyway,” Sherlock muses. “These symptoms narrow the list, but not enough. It could still be a number of things: Golden Chain, rhubarb, possibly hemlock,” the deer shudders and vomits again, “possibly Oleander, Lily-of-the-Valley.”

“Well what should we do?” Mrs. Hudson frets. “We can’t cure the poor thing until we know what poisoned it.” 

“Well,” Sherlock stands, brushing off his knees, and facing the sisters so Mrs. Sisson can read his lips, “we could wait and see how the symptoms progress.”

John frowns thunderously. 

“It could be too late by then!” the parrot complains.

“Then I suppose we ought to do some tracking,” Sherlock decides with a grin.

The deer’s legs kick, a moaning sound torn from its throat as its muscles tense painfully. “I’ll stay here,” Mrs. Hudson offers, taking John’s spot and stroking the animal’s head.

So the three of them trample into the underbrush, John and Mrs. Sissons following Sherlock as he follows the deer’s delicate hoof prints. “Watch out for poison ivy,” he warns, skirting around a tree with vines of the stuff, innocuous-looking but with the tell-tale clusters of three leaves. 

They come to a stop in front of a tree with bunches of hanging yellow flowers. 

“They’re beautiful,” Mrs. Sissons’s parrot comments.

“Golden Chain,” Sherlock informs her with relish, wishing he had bags for samples. “The seeds and pods can be poisonous, but these appear undisturbed. This is not our culprit.”

They move forward, occasionally swatting insects from their faces, stepping over roots and pushing branches out of their path. At times they lose the deer’s tracks, and the parrot has to fly ahead until it spots the prints again, leading them in the right direction. They again come to a stop when Sherlock notices the lacy leaves and the small, white clustered flowers of poison hemlock. 

“This plant is extremely toxic – even a small amount can be fatal. Do you notice any nibbling?” They carefully observe every inch of the plant, but can find no evidence of teeth marks. “The deer would likely already be dead if this is what it ate,” Sherlock admits.

They find Lily-of-the-Valley next, its fragrant, bell-shaped flowers misleading in their innocent appearance. “They can cause an irregular heart beat,” Sherlock says, eyeing the smooth ground. “But the deer did not stop here.”

They at last find a section of dirt that is covered in hoof prints and droppings, indicating that the deer spent a considerable amount of time here. Sherlock halts his companions and crouches by a bush of rhubarb plants. “We use rhubarb stalks in pies, but the leaves are poisonous,” he says, brushing through the large leaves with gloved hands to find evidence of nibbling. “You have to eat at least five percent of your body weight for a fatal reaction.” With a triumphant noise, he stands, showing off the section of ravaged leaves that fell victim to the deer’s appetite. “Fortunately, the deer likely began feeling ill before it could eat that much.”

John grins at him and gives him two thumbs up while the parrot flutters its wings excitedly. “Let’s hurry back so we can begin treatment,” it says for Mrs. Sissons, and they run all the way back.

While Sherlock knows more about the symptoms of poisoning than the cures, he is aware that the treatment process is typically more complicated than a simple vial of fluid labeled ‘rhubarb cure’, which is what Mrs. Hudson feeds the miserable animal. She shrugs and smiles when she sees Sherlock’s dubious expression. “There’s a cure for everything here,” she tells him. “And it’s the mystery that’s the interesting part, anyway, wouldn’t you agree?

  


His parents greet them as they leave the apartment. “How was your visit, hun?” Mummy asks.

“It was incredible!” Sherlock bursts, nearly skipping in his excitement. “Angelo did this amazing escape trick and he showed us how to pick locks, and then the sisters had this amazing forest of toxic plants in the basement, and we had to figure out which plant poisoned a deer…” They walk back to their apartment as Sherlock recounts their experiences, John trailing behind silently. When Sherlock looks over his shoulder to say goodbye to his friend, the words freeze in his throat at John’s expression. The younger boy appears terribly uneasy, eyebrows tilted, mouth drooping and face downturned.

Sherlock only catches a glimpse of the expression before Father is opening the apartment door and ushering him inside. “You do like it here, don’t you, Sherlock?” he asks, putting a hand on his shoulder while Mummy lingers in the doorway.

Sherlock hums in agreement, leaning into his father’s warmth. “It’s never boring here.”

Closing the door behind them, Mummy passes them, leading the way to the dining room. “You could stay here forever, you know,” she tells him with a smile. “If you want to.”

“Really?” 

“Of course!” Father assures him. “We’ll play pirates and solve mysteries and go on adventures whenever you want!”

“There’s just one little thing we need to do first,” Mummy teases, urging him to sit at the table. He drops his backpack on the ground beside him.

“There are conditions?”

“Only the one,” Mummy corrects. “And it’s more of a gift than a condition.”

“Well, what is it?” he demands eagerly.

Opening a drawer in the china cabinet, Mummy pulls out a small wrapped box and places it on the table in front of Sherlock. Both parents watch attentively as he opens it and peers inside.

Resting on a smooth red cushion are two black buttons, each about the size of a two pound coin, with a sewing needle and a small spool of thread nestled between them.

“Black is traditional,” Mummy says as he stares at the buttons, a churning sensation beginning in his gut. “But you can have any colour you like, of course.”

He stands so quickly the chair nearly tips backwards. “You want to sew buttons in my eyes?” 

_You think this world is a dream come true, but you’re wrong._

“It’s a fair trade, don’t you think?” Other-Mummy takes a step towards him. “All I need are your eyes and you can stay here with your family, where nothing is boring, forever.”

“We only want what’s best for you,” Other-Father agrees.

_Haven’t you noticed the clues?_

“It _is_ perfect here,” Sherlock says slowly, “except one thing is missing.”

“What, dear?” She clasps her hands, looking at him with a doting expression.

“Redbeard.” He watches her face carefully. “If I stay, can you make Redbeard come back? So I can play pirates with him?”

“Well, of course, dear!” She smiles at him, relieved. “You didn’t think I’d forget about your love for pirates, did you? We can bring back all the pirates: Redbeard, Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Calico Jack…”

Ice floods his veins and Other-Mummy seems to realize something is wrong, because she frowns and steps closer, brow furrowing when he flinches back.

“Is everything alright, Pirate Sherlock?” this Other, this perversion of his father asks.

“I think I just,” he begins weakly, then clears his throat. “It’s a big decision to make. I’d like to sleep on it.”

“Good thinking,” Other-Mummy agrees, taking the box and returning the lid. “Would you like us to tuck you in?”

“N-no, thanks!” he stammers, too quickly, picking up his bag and clutching it like a shield in front of his chest as he backs up towards the stairs. He forces a smile. “You’ve done so much already.”

They both follow him, too close, and he nearly trips over the first step. “We love you so much,” she insists, taking hold of Other-Father’s arm. “You know that, don’t you?”

Stepping backwards up the first stair, he bumps into someone and whirls around.

“Off to bed so early, little brother?” Other-Mycroft wonders, looking down at him.

“I just have a lot to think about,” he explains, nearly breathless, as he edges around the image of his brother. 

“You’ll see things our way soon enough,” Other-Mycroft says agreeably, turning to give him space. “See you in the morning.”

Sherlock restrains the urge to run until he reaches the second floor, then he dashes to his room and slams the door shut.

“What’s shakin’, Sherlock?” the skeleton asks as he throws his backpack on the foot of his bed.

“What’s bugging you?” the bees buzz, their tiny button eyes flashing dully. 

The violin starts up an obnoxious tune, and Sherlock grabs the instrument and stuffs it in the chest at the foot of his bed.

“Where are your buttons?” ask the bees as Sherlock takes their case off the wall. With a few well-aimed swipes, he’s trapped all the insects and throws the case in the chest as well.

The skeleton rattles. “Don’t you want to stay?” it whines as Sherlock locks it in the closet.

The lava lamp burbles unhappily, but Sherlock ignores it as he pushes the chest against his bedroom door, followed by the heavy desk with his chemistry equipment. “I’ve let sentiment cloud my judgement,” he realizes, winded. “This place isn’t a paradise, it’s a trap.” He turns out the light, kicks off his shoes, chucks his scarf on the floor and throws himself onto the bed. Above him the stars twinkle in agitation. “I’m going home and I’m not coming back.”

Clothes still on, he huddles under the covers and squeezes his eyes shut. He needs to sleep so he can go home, but it feels like his heart is clawing up his throat and it’s stifling under the blankets. He tosses and turns for what feels like hours, until he forces himself still and attempts the calming mind exercises Mycroft taught him. Eventually he falls asleep.

  


When he awakens the next morning, he reacts without thinking. “Mycroft! Mummy!” he calls, whipping off the covers. “I’m –”

He’s not home. 

It didn’t work. Every other time he’s gone to sleep here, he’s woken up at home again. The pattern is broken, something has changed.

_See you in the morning_ , Other-Mycroft said.

Fighting panic, Sherlock jumps out of bed, not bothering to change clothes, just pulls on his shoes and sets about de-barricading his door. The house is eerily quiet as Sherlock runs down the stairs then heads straight for the living room, whose closed doors hide the passage home. He pulls on the doors with his entire body weight, but they don’t budge.

The crackling of radio static catches his attention, and Sherlock heads for the office, finding his Not-Father sitting in his armchair, back to the door. His head is bowed, as if over a book, but the familiar image is marred by the radio, which snaps and hisses like an angry beast, random snatches of melodies clashing and overlapping. 

“Hey!” Sherlock says loudly, but the man doesn’t flinch. “Where’s the Other-Mummy?” He steps further into the office, itching to turn off the radio’s skin-crawling sound. “I won’t stay here against my will!”

The man turns then, and Sherlock balks at the sight of his sallow skin and chaotic hair. “All will be well soon as Mother’s refreshed,” he says, as if in a trance. The book in his lap is upside-down. 

Feet moving without his permission, Sherlock jerks back a step. “Where’s the other Mycroft?” he demands, voice less than steady. 

“He’s not feeling very well,” Other-Father admits slowly. “Mother’s strength is our str –” 

Just behind Sherlock, the radio suddenly lets out a roar of sound, a cacophony like a cymbal crash, a revving engine and a human scream combined. Sherlock flinches, but Other-Father reacts as if struck by lightning, cowering in his chair and dropping his head until his nose is only inches from the book in his lap.

“Mustn’t talk when Mother’s not here,” he mumbles.

“If you won’t even talk to me, I might as well find John,” Sherlock snaps, voice shaking. “He’ll help me.”

Other-Father shakes his head morosely, looking up at Sherlock through his eyebrows. “No point. Johnny-boy pulled a long face,” he pulls on his sagging cheeks with his hands until his mouth contorts in a cartoonish frown, the bags under his button eyes stretching alarmingly, “and Mother didn’t like it.”

The radio screeches again, a distorted wail that seems to wrap around Sherlock’s heart and squeeze. He runs from the room, down the hallway and out the back door, not once looking back. He doesn’t even consciously pick a direction, only realizing once he’s already walking through the trees that he’s headed towards the old well where he first met John.

“So you’ve figured it out at last, have you?”

Sherlock jumps and looks down at the cat that seems to have materialized at his side, matching his pace. “I need to get out of here,” he avows, stepping over outreaching roots.

As they walk, something odd begins to happen. The ground beneath their feet seems to lose consistency, the sky seems to bleed colour, the trees seem to lack saturation.

“What’s going on?” Sherlock demands, as the world around them turns into a blank nothingness, white in all directions without a hint of a horizon. It is the absence of something. It is non-existence. “Shouldn’t the old well be here?” He stops walking, suddenly disoriented and terrified to go the wrong direction.

“There’s nothing out here,” the cat informs him, trotting on ahead without concern. “It’s the empty part of this world. She only made what she knew would impress you.”

Wiping his sweaty palms on his trousers, he follows the animal. “Why does she want _me_?”

“She wants something to love, I think, something to admire. Something that isn’t her.” The cat makes a contemplative sound. “Or maybe she just wants something to eat.”

Sherlock shoots him a glare to hide his uneasiness. “That’s idiotic. Human mothers don’t eat their young.”

“What makes you think she’s human?” The cat chuckles at his expression, prancing forward as colour begins to seep into the ground again, the space ahead of them filling with fuzzy images that sharpen the more they walk.

“How is this possible?” Sherlock wonders as the Pink Palace takes shape, the world reinstating itself around them. “I just walked away from this place!”

“If you walk long enough in one direction, eventually you will end up right back where you started.” The cat crouches suddenly. “Hold on,” it halts the boy, ears pricked forwards and tail twitching.

There’s a rustling in the tree to their right, and an odd sound starts up, like a poor-quality recording of an ambulance siren. The cat shoots up the tree trunk and Sherlock spots a flash of bright colours as a hidden parrot startles.

“Don’t!” Sherlock cries at the cat. “That’s Mrs. Sissons’s pet parrot!”

With a panicked caw, the parrot tries to launch itself out of the leaves, only for its tail to be caught in the cat’s jaws. A couple vicious bats of the paws daze the bird, and then the cat clamps sharp teeth around its neck, killing the parrot in an instant.

Sherlock darts forward as the parrot falls to the ground, but instead of Mrs. Sissons’s beloved pet, Sherlock finds the still body of a black crow, sand pouring out of its open beak.

The cat lands nimbly at Sherlock’s side. “I don’t like birds at the best of times, but this one was sounding an alarm.” He picks up the crow in his mouth and trots off down the path to stash his kill.

“Clever cat,” Sherlock murmurs and, with renewed determination, makes his way back into the house.

 

He retrieves his backpack from his room first, pausing in front of Other-Mycroft’s shut door for a moment before continuing on to the living room again. Faced with the locked doors, Sherlock opens his backpack to pull out the lock-pick kit from Angelo, then kneels in front of the lock and gets to work. It takes several minutes, but at last the final pin falls into place and Sherlock swings the doors open triumphantly.

The room is dark, but the light from the hallway illuminates the secret door. Stuffing the kit into his backpack, Sherlock lunges for the door, stopping short when an armoire scuttles like a bug to block him. With a heavy thud, the piece of furniture settles in front of the little door, as immoveable as an armed sentry.

The lights switch on then, and Sherlock realizes the entire room has been transformed, with slug-like couches, insect wallpaper and a beetle for a coffee table. All around him antennae curl and legs twitch, making the entire room feel alive.

“They say even the proudest spirit can be broken,” Other-Mummy says, perched on a pulsing, caterpillar settee, “with love.”

The door swings shut behind him and an armchair scuttles up against his knees, forcing him to sit and then carrying him towards Other-Mummy. When it stops in front of the beetle coffee table, he notices the black, bulging head, with clacking pincers and waving antennae included. He struggles to keep his face blank.

“Of course,” she continues, smiling easily as a praying mantis lamp waddles to her side, handing her a box, “chocolate never hurts. Like one?” She offers him the box of wriggling chocolates, all in the shape of beetles and worms and flies. When he doesn’t move, she takes one for herself, squeezing the chocolate’s centre to avoid the squirming legs. “They’re cocoa bugs from Zanzibar,” she boasts, biting into one with relish. It crunches loudly and Sherlock fights the urge to gag as she chews. It’s the first thing he’s seen her eat, he realizes.

“I want to be with my real family,” Sherlock demands firmly, leaning forward in his seat. “I want you to let me go.”

“Well, you can’t always get what you want, Sherlock,” she tells him, an edge to her voice that he hasn’t heard before. She crosses her arms. “As your mother, I know what’s best.”

“ _You_ ,” he spits lowly, “are _not_ my mother.”

Her top lip curls and her brow furrows as she looms over him. “Apologize at once, Sherlock.”

Refusing to be intimidated, Sherlock leans closer. “No.”

“I’ll give you to the count of three,” she threatens quietly, fingers tightening where they grip her own elbows.

Sherlock rolls his eyes.

She leans back but it doesn’t look like a retreat. “One.” There’s a wet crackling sound, like the creaking of old bones or the squirming of a thousand maggots in a bucket. This woman – this creature – in front of him seems to lengthen and grow as she sits. “Two.” Spine stretching, neck elongating, Sherlock tilts his head back to watch the horrific transformation. Her face thins, bones pressing against straining skin, her ribs and collarbones poke out of her dress, her nails sharpen into claws and her plump, pink lips thin and darken to a scab-like black. She towers over him now, at least seven feet tall and as sharp as a skeleton. “Three!” She roars, and grabs him by the hair.

A yelp of pain and shocked fury tears from his throat as he’s forced to stand, her nails scratching his scalp. “What are you doing?” he screeches, stumbling as she drags him from the room, deaf to his protests.

They stop in front of the full-length mirror at the end of the hallway, then, with a strength that belies her emaciated appearance, she lifts him by the arms and throws him into the mirror. Sherlock doesn’t even have time to brace for the impact before he’s falling _through_ the mirror and into a dank, gloomy cellar on the other side, landing with a jarring thud. Scrambling onto his back, he sees the monster lean through the cement wall after him, her face hollowed by ghoulish shadows.

“You may come out after you’ve learned to be a loving son,” she snarls and melts back through the wall, leaving smooth, impenetrable cement under Sherlock’s furious fists. The moment she’s gone, he’s left in total darkness.

“You can’t keep me here forever!” he yells, leaning his forehead against the cool wall and breathing heavily.

How has he let himself get so spun in her web that he didn’t even guess at the truth before it was too late? How has he fallen for such an illusion, no matter how detailed and complex? His father is dead, nothing will bring him back, his mother is depressed and withdrawn, Mycroft leaving for uni. Like a child he was presented with the perfect world and he clung to it like a favourite blanky. 

Well, no more. First he will get out of here, and then he will leave this nightmarish world.

A quiet rustling comes from behind him and he whirls around, pressing his back against the wall and opening his eyes wide in the pitch black.

“Look, someone new!” a child’s despairing voice whispers.

“Who’s there?” he demands.

“It’s been ages since she caught you,” a second voice says to the first, equally hushed.

“He hasn’t got buttons!” a third breathes excitedly.

A golden light bursts into existence then, dim but brightening every moment, revealing the tiny cell with its damp floors and rusty pipes. The light seems to originate from the single bed in the corner, its mattress sunken and decaying, and Sherlock creeps towards it. There’s a sheet that glows as if it covers a lamp, but Sherlock has a sick feeling in his stomach that he knows what the lumpy form is.

With a trembling hand, he drags off the sheet and finds the source of the voices: three children, two girls and a boy, huddled together, their bodies translucent and glowing, buttons for eyes and faces frozen in rictuses of despair and horror. When revealed, they gasp and flinch back.

“Who are you?” Sherlock asks.                                                     

“Hush!” one of them hisses. “Or She might hear you.”

“You mean the Other Mummy?” he whispers. “What are you doing here?”

They rise up then, their incorporeal bodies hovering in the air. “She put us here to be rid of us,” one girl says, her long hair drifting around her sagging face. “Once we’d served our purpose.”

“She tricked you, too?”

The little boy, no more than seven years old, floats off the bed, wringing his hands. “She spied on our lives through the little doll’s eyes and saw that we weren’t happy.”

“The doll? Did the doll look like you?” Sherlock presses, his lips thinning when they all nod.

This world is a near perfect reflection of his life, a reflection that would have taken extensive observation and planning to reproduce. He thinks of mini-Sherlock, propped up at his bedside at home, next to the family image with Father. He thinks of the doll in his backpack, seeing and hearing everything about his family, about John. He realizes he only met the other neighbours here after the doll saw the real neighbours for the first time, and it makes sense suddenly why the Other-Mummy has no idea who Redbeard is. Sherlock has no photos of his pet dog, nor did the doll ever see the leash hidden under his pillow.

“She lured us away,” the other girl moans, large glasses on her nose and short pigtails falling out of her ribbons, “with treasures and treats and games to play.”

“She gave us all that we asked,” admits the first girl, hovering restlessly. “Yet we still wanted more.”

“So we let her sew the buttons,” the boy breathes, voice hissing through the cell, and all three children claw at their button eyes.

They begin to circle Sherlock and, in their agitation, their rasping voices seem to merge together.

“She said that she loved us!”

“Then she locked us here!”

“And ate up our lives.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Sherlock presses the heels on his hands to his forehead. “She can’t keep me here forever,” he mutters. “Not if she wants to win my life.” He shakes his head and opens his eyes, startling when he finds all three children hovering in front of him, their wretched faces gazing back at him. “Beating her is my only chance.”

The little girl with pigtails drifts forwards. “Perhaps, if you do win your escape, you could find our eyes.”

“She’s kept them?”

“Yes,” says the other girl. “Hidden away.”

“If you could find our eyes,” the boy entreats, “our souls would be freed.”

Sherlock hesitates. He’d rather not prolong his captivity here with a game of hunt and search, and once he’s free of this place he has no intentions of returning. “Well, I –”

Whatever excuse he was about to say is interrupted as a pair of hands grab him from behind. With a forceful tug, he is pulled through the wall and back into the hallway, the mirror rippling in front of him. A hand covers his mouth, muffling his shout as he slams his silent attacker back into the wall, glad for the hard book in his backpack as he wriggles to escape. They stumble and fall in a heap to the floor, and Sherlock scrambles up, finding his assailant slumped on the ground, a burlap sack covering his face. Reaching out, Sherlock seizes the mask and pulls it off, reeling at what he sees.

“ _John?_ ” he exclaims in horror.

The younger boy cowers and covers his face with his hands, but Sherlock has already seen. John’s face is moulded with distress everywhere except for his mouth, which is pinned at the cheeks in the perversion of a smile, his lips stretched painfully and his teeth bared. Dropping to his knees, Sherlock gently takes John’s hands, pulling them away from his face, and John peers up at him, his eyebrows downturned over his button eyes.

“Did She do this to you?” Sherlock demands, but John does not react to the question, just watching him helplessly. Biting his lower lip, Sherlock reaches for the pins in John’s cheeks, quickly unclasping them and tugging them free from flesh. Immediately, John’s face relaxes and his lips settle into a pouting frown as he rubs his cheeks. “Is that better?”

“ _Shh!_ ” John grabs his hand and scrambles up, pulling Sherlock along as he runs into the living room. Without the Other-Mother around, the lights are off again and the furniture sits inert and unthreatening. The occasional antenna curls sluggishly.

Together they shove over the armoire that blocks the little door, flinching as it crashes to the ground.

“ _Sherlock!_ ” the Other-Mother calls from somewhere in the house. “ _Is that you?_ ”

“Let’s go!” Sherlock hisses, crouching and throwing open the little door. They both peer in and Sherlock gasps.

The magical tunnel, with its beating pulse and thrumming blue lights, has withered and decayed. Now, it looks like an enormous ant tunnel, its colour the greys and browns of dirt, spider webs clogging the passage.

“Sherlock!” the Other-Mother shouts, closer now, and the entire tunnel shudders and shakes with her voice. They can hear her tread on the stairs and Sherlock tugs on John’s arm.

“Come on,” he urges when John resists. “She’ll hurt you again!”

The younger boy shakes his head fiercely and lifts his right hand, presenting its dusty, crumbling appearance. He takes a deep breath and blows on his hand as if it were a birthday candle, and the entire appendage flakes and crumbles away into the air, leaving John with a stump at his wrist. Sherlock’s mouth drops open in horror.

“How dare you disobey your mother, Sherlock!”

With a pleading, apologetic expression, John shoves Sherlock into the tunnel, slamming the door shut behind him.

“John!” Sherlock cries, pounding once on the door, but it’s no use. He can hear the Other-Mother’s approach and he’s out of time.

Heart pounding in his chest, he scrambles on his hands and knees through the dusty tunnel, swiping at cobwebs as he goes. It seems to go on forever, but he keeps pushing forwards, desperate to reach the light filtering in at the other end, and when he reaches the other door he throws himself through it, landing on his stomach in his living room. Not even pausing to catch his breath, he clambers up and slams the door shut behind him, locking it with a vicious twist of the key.

There are cobwebs matted in his hair and tickling his face, and he brushes at them as he stands. “I’m home!” he calls loudly, striding out of the living room and into the kitchen, dropping his backpack on the table. Mycroft’s coat is still thrown over the kitchen chair, Mummy’s hanging from the coat hook. Midday light streams through the windows. “Hello!” His voice echoes through the house.

He wanders out of the kitchen to the office. “Mummy?” He pushes open the door, surprised to find the room empty, Mummy’s laptop and texts abandoned, her case of pencils scattered on the floor. With a frown Sherlock turns and runs through the house to the second floor, pounding on Mycroft’s door before throwing it open. “Mycroft, where’s –” Mycroft’s room is empty too. He runs to the window and peers outside, but the car is still there.

The doorbell rings and Sherlock dashes down the stairs to the door, hope flaring in his chest. He unlocks the door and throws it open, greetings already on his lips.

“Oh,” he says, deflating when he sees John, the real John, standing on the porch, clutching one arm awkwardly. “The John that talks.”

“What?” John makes a face at him. “Yeah, hello. So,” he begins, rubbing the back of his neck, “you know that old doll I gave you?”

“You want it back,” Sherlock says flatly. “You stole it, didn’t you? From your grandmother.”

Eyes widening, John gapes at him. “How’d you – uh, yeah. But, I mean, it looked just like you!” he exclaims defensively. “And I figured –”

“It _used_ to look like three other kids, too.”

“Well,” John laughs nervously, as if Sherlock is making a joke. “Grandma found out and she’s really angry. Turns out it belonged to her twin sister – the one that disappeared?”

Sherlock sucks in a breath as realization strikes. He pulls John into the house and closes the door, grabbing the startled boy by the shoulders. “Do you know what she used to look like, your grandma’s sister?”

“What? What has that got to do –”

“Have you ever seen an old picture?” Sherlock insists, squeezing John’s shoulders until the boy grimaces. “Try to remember. Did she have glasses? Short pigtails with ribbons?”

John’s eyes widen and his mouth goes slack in recognition.

“I just met her,” Sherlock tells him and grabs his hand, pulling him down the hallway. “Come on!”

“Look, I’m _really_ not supposed to be in here,” John says nervously, stumbling along behind him.

Ignoring him, Sherlock pulls him to the living room and stops in front of the little door, key still in the lock. “She’s in there.”

John squints at the door. “Who?”

“Your great aunt!” he says in exasperation. “Beyond that door is a whole other world.”

Reaching out, John’s fingers brush the key. “Can you open it?”

Fast as a cobra Sherlock’s hand strikes out and seizes John’s wrist. “Definitely not. The Other-Mother is in there, waiting for me.”

Shrugging out of his grip, John backs away from him, one eyebrow arched dubiously. “Right,” he chuckles, strained. “Well, I really need that doll, so…”

“Fine,” Sherlock spits. He knows what he needs to do now, knows what he needs to say: ‘I will return the doll with the condition that you never speak to me again.’ Instead, he grabs John’s arm again and stalks out of the room. “I’m glad to be rid of it.”

“Hey!” John complains, nearly tripping as they run up the stairs and into Sherlock’s room.

The doll is not on the chair where it’s supposed to be, and Sherlock dives to the bed, searching through the sheets and then dropping to the floor to look underneath. “Where are you, little spy?” he mutters, tearing through his room.

“Uh, you and the doll been talking?”

“It’s how she watches you,” Sherlock explains, unthinking of how mad the words sound. He feels like he’s wound too tight, his adrenaline pumping, his nerves as tense as a violin’s strings. Searching through the trunk at the foot of his bed he begins throwing blankets to the floor. “She figures out what’s wrong with your life and then creates this perfect other world to reel you in.” Abandoning the empty trunk, he whirls on John, looming over him. “But it’s all a trap.”

Swallowing heavily, John teeters back and smiles tightly. “Look, I’ll just tell Grandma you couldn’t find the doll, alright?” he says, inching for the door.

“You’re not listening to me!” Sherlock growls, fists clenching.

“I’m not listening to you because what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense!” John exclaims. “What you’re talking about, that’s practically certifiable. I know ‘cause Grandma –”

“Oh, yes, please, what does Grandma say?” Sherlock hisses. “It’s always Grandma this and Grandma that –”

He immediately cuts of as John ducks his head, frowning and leaning away.

Sherlock inhales loudly in realization. “Because your parents are dead, aren’t they, John?” he says gently, and at the change of tone John’s eyes meet his again, wide and wet in confirmation. “God, I’ve been blind! I wasn’t looking hard enough, before, because I didn’t care,” Sherlock admits, thinking of how angry he’d been when they’d first arrived, angry enough that it had shrouded his vision. “I was so caught up with my own plight… But it’s just you, your sister, and your grandma in that house. You really meant it when you said you understood…about my father.”

John no longer looks like he’s about to dart out the door, but now his shoulders sag, his arms crossed. “Yeah,” he mumbles. “Yeah, I really do understand.”

All at once something in Sherlock’s chest unwinds, and he slumps onto the side of his bed, head hanging. After a long moment John joins him, sitting at his side silently.

“How long?” Sherlock asks.

“A year and five months now,” John says, then purses his lips, and Sherlock knows he’s stopping himself from listing the days and hours, too. “You?”

“Thirty-eight days.” He feels the ache of every single one of them in that moment and his lips tremble.

John nods and grabs his hand, squeezing once without looking at him. Neither boy says they’re sorry.

After a while, John shifts to sit more comfortably on the bed, facing Sherlock. “Where’s your mum and your brother?” he asks.

Scooting further onto the mattress, Sherlock hugs his knees to his chest. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But the car’s still here, and Mycroft left his coat…”

John’s brow furrows. “You try calling them?”

“Not yet.” He gets up and goes back to the kitchen to use the phone, John trailing behind him. Mummy doesn’t have a mobile, and when Sherlock tries calling Mycroft’s it goes to voicemail.

“Maybe they went for a walk?” John offers.

“Without their coats?” Anxiety sharpens Sherlock’s voice, but John doesn’t lose patience.

“Well, where do you think they are?”

“I don’t know,” he snaps, but he watches John like the younger boy has an explanation. “But I think… I think they’re in trouble. They’d never just leave like this.”

“Okay,” John soothes, nodding. “Okay, well, we should get an adult to help.” When Sherlock scoffs John just talks over him. “Maybe your neighbours saw something? I’ve always thought Angelo is a bit unhinged, but the sisters seem nice enough.”

“Oh!” Sherlock moves to grab his backpack on the kitchen table, unzipping one of the rarely used side pouches and pulling out the delicate charm bracelet. “I’d forgotten I had this! It’s Mrs. Sissons’s.”

“Let’s return it and we can ask about your parents,” John offers.

“You’ll come with me?”

“Well, since I’m already breaking the rules by being here,” John says wryly, “I might as well see more of the house before Grandma kills me.” A grin appears as he eyes Sherlock’s hair.

“What?”

Wetting his lips, John steps forward and reaches out towards his head, ignoring the way Sherlock tenses, and brushes his fingers through Sherlock’s hair. “You’ve got a cobweb in your hair somehow. There, now you’re less of a fright,” he teases.

It takes a moment for Sherlock to unfreeze, to make his mouth and larynx work again. “Let’s go,” he croaks and, bracelet in hand, leads the way to apartment A.

 

As Mrs. Hudson ushers them down the stairs to the basement, Sherlock watches John’s expression, pleased to see the boy isn’t as sheltered as he looks based on the way his eyes widen and his nostrils twitch. He shoots Sherlock a disbelieving look, to which Sherlock replies with a knowing smirk and an eye roll. Muffling his chuckle with a hand brushing his lips, John’s eyes crinkle with mirth.

They’re shown to the same lumpy couch as the first time Sherlock was here. Mrs. Hudson fetches her sister and once everyone is seated, John does a little wave at Mrs. Sissons and a simple gesture with both hands.

“You know sign language?” Sherlock queries, shocked.

“Just a bit,” John admits, watching Mrs. Sissons’s reply. “Mostly greetings and some general terms.” He makes another gesture and then, aloud, asks her, “Did Mrs. Hudson explain it to you?”

Mrs. Sissons nods at the same time Mrs. Hudson assures, “I told her what you told me.” Her hands flutter in her lap as she frowns at Sherlock. “You’ve no idea where they’ve gone?”

Shaking his head, Sherlock holds out the bracelet to its owner, who smiles in delight when she sees it. She holds out her arm and Sherlock obligingly clasps the piece around her wrist. “Angelo found it,” he tells her as she watches his lips. “He gave it to me to give to you.”

She nods and pulls back her arm, then swipes her hand over her chin, mouthing ‘thank you’ with the gesture, to which Sherlock tips his head in reply.

“My mum and brother were missing when I woke up this morning,” Sherlock tells the sisters, a harmless and believable modification of the truth. “But the car is still here, as are both their coats. And Mycroft won’t answer his mobile.”

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Hudson frets. “Perhaps we should call the police?” She wonders, signing at her sister.

“There’s no evidence of violence or force in the house,” Sherlock protests. “Everything is more or less as it should be. They’re just…gone.”

His voice wavers and John scoots closer to him on the couch, not touching, but near enough to feel the warmth of his body.

Mrs. Sissons makes a clucking sound with her tongue, her face brightening as she signs something rapid at his sister, then she hurries off into another room. The clattering of objects being moved and rearranged drifts out and Mrs. Hudson sighs in resignation.

“What’s she doing?” Sherlock asks, but the woman is back before Mrs. Hudson can reply, something cradled in her hands.

With a nearly reverent touch, Mrs. Sissons passes a hand mirror to Sherlock. It’s small enough to fit in his palm, with an intricate gold backing, embossed with intertwining vines surrounding a triangle which contains an eye, wide-pupiled with lines extending from it. Flipping it over again, Sherlock peers at his own reflection, but it seems like an ordinary mirror. He passes it to John, who’s peeking over his shoulder curiously, but the other boy seems equally puzzled by the plainness of the mirror.

Their bewilderment must show clearly because Mrs. Sissons prompts Mrs. Hudson, who quickly explains. “That mirror is supposed to reflect the truth. Or maybe it reflects the hidden. I always forget which,” she admits. “You know how she believes in all that hocus pocus stuff. I’m more dubious myself, but it might help!” She shrugs.

John passes the mirror back to Sherlock with an apologetic expression and Sherlock has the strong urge to hurl the thing at a wall. Instead he clenches it in his fist and smiles tightly at the sisters. “Thanks for the help,” he manages and stands sharply, already stalking from the room while John lingers over useless platitudes and goodbyes. The parrot is by the front window again, and it shuffles on its wood log when the mirror in Sherlock’s hand reflects light in its face.

“Lost see,” it croaks, twisting its head playfully. “Lost see find.”

Eyeing the bird warily, Sherlock steps out onto the porch, crossing his arms to stop the trembling in his hands. The sun is nearly touching the horizon, the first streaks of pink leaking into the sky.

“That was a waste of time,” he spits the moment John steps up behind him, then strides back to his apartment. John only sighs.

“Yeah, I was hoping they’d be more help,” John admits, following him. “We could try Angelo?”

“He won’t be of any more use,” Sherlock dismisses, stomping inside.

“ _John!_ ” the boy’s grandma calls out, her voice a faint whisper on the wind. “ _Come home, John!”_

Still on the porch, John hesitates, grimacing when Sherlock turns to face him. “That’s your cue.”

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “Look, you gonna be okay tonight?”

“Of course,” Sherlock snaps. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

John rolls his eyes. “Yeah, no reason. Enjoy being home alone.” He turns to go and Sherlock’s hand clenches on the doorknob. The boy pauses and sighs, shoulders sagging. “You could come over to my house tonight,” he offers over his shoulder.

It’s tempting to accept. Tempting to go home with John and sleep in his house with other people around, a primitive, social instinct that is hard to ignore. “I can’t,” he mutters. “I need to be here in case they come back.”

“ _John!_ ”

John twitches and leans further away, as if drawn by his grandmother’s call. “I’ll be back first thing tomorrow morning, ‘kay?”

“Fine,” Sherlock agrees and closes the door before he can watch John leave.

He chokes down a bowl of cold cereal for dinner while staring at Mycroft’s coat on the chair across from him, showers, brushes his teeth, changes and goes to bed early. Each creak of the house makes him jump and it’s a long time before he falls asleep.

 

He’s woken hours later by pounding on the door. Startling awake, he glances at his alarm clock, noting that the sun could barely have even started to rise yet. The pounding continues insistently and Sherlock hops out of bed, running barefoot through the house to the front door. The moment he opens it, the cat pounces at him, winding its way through his legs and meowing raucously.

“Sorry!” John gasps, windblown and out of breath, clearly having run the whole way here. He, too, is in his pyjamas, the trousers tucked into a pair of sturdy boots. “He was insistent.”

“Hello, again,” Sherlock greets the cat, which peers up at him with large eyes before darting off into the house. “Hey!”

The boys break into a run to follow, skidding to a stop when the cat plops down in front of the full-length mirror in the hallway by the kitchen. As they watch, the image of their reflection morphs and swirls, Mummy and Mycroft appearing in their stead. With a gasp, Sherlock jerks forward, pressing a hand to the glass when he sees his mother and brother standing on the other side, holding hands with confused, anxious expressions on their faces. They are bathed in a golden light and Sherlock can hear a very faint ticking sound through the glass.

“Mummy! Mycroft!” Sherlock bangs on the mirror, but they don’t seem to notice, their eyes darting around themselves fearfully as the image wavers and fades again, leaving only Sherlock’s pale face and John’s worried one behind him. With a shout, Sherlock rears back to bang on the mirror again, but John catches his fist, pulling him back and winding his arms around him while Sherlock pants. “How did this happen?” he beseeches, squeezing the arms around his chest.

With a meow the cat scampers off again, forcing them to follow it to the office, where it jumps on the couch and begins tearing at one of the cushions.

“Oi! No!” John rebukes, grabbing the cushion and pulling it away from the cat’s claws, freezing when he finds something odd.

The cat plunges its face into the space between the back of the couch and the seat cushion, wriggling its bum in the air as it pulls a doll out, laying it out for inspection. Grabbing it, Sherlock hisses when he sees the doll’s head. On one side, it looks like Mycroft’s face, but flipping the doll, he finds Mummy’s face on the other side.

“She’s taken them.”

“Who?” John stammers, clutching the cushion to his chest. “The…the Other-Mother?”

Lips pulled back to bare his teeth, Sherlock stalks to the living room with the little door and the fireplace, where he throws in the doll. Grabbing the lighter from the mantel, he crouches and sets the doll aflame, watching it burn with satisfaction.

“I think I believe you now,” John whispers from behind him, pulling Sherlock’s attention from the flames. He turns and finds John looking at the little door with curiosity and trepidation.

“There’s no choice,” Sherlock says lowly. “I have to go back.”

With a nod, John crouches to scratch the cat behind the ears. “I’ll come with you.”

The cat hisses and pulls away, twisting restlessly.

“It’ll be dangerous,” Sherlock warns him, stepping closer.

“What was the little girl with glasses wearing?”

Brow furrowed, Sherlock replies, “A dress with polka dots and a ribbon around the waist.”

Smiling grimly, John reaches into his trouser pocket and pulls out an old photograph, showing it to Sherlock. In it are twin girls, one as Sherlock has described, the other obviously John’s grandmother.

“I’m not letting you go back there alone,” John declares. “You’re brilliant, but you’ll need back up. And if my grandma’s sister is in there, it’s up to me to free her.”

For a moment Sherlock just stares, the words ‘you’re brilliant’, so calmly stated, still ringing in his head.

“So,” John prompts. “What will we need?”

 

They don’t bother changing out of their pyjamas, Sherlock just pulls on a pair of sturdy shoes and grabs his backpack. In it he packs everything he owns that may be useful: his Frisbee hat, the lock pick kit and Redbeard’s leash.

When Sherlock riffles through a drawer in the kitchen for a powerful torch, John searches an unpacked box on the floor. “What about this?” he asks, holding out a hammer.

With a nod, Sherlock holds open the bag and John drops in the tool. Reaching into his pocket, Sherlock pulls out the hand mirror from Mrs. Sissons, turning it round and round in his hands.

“It can’t hurt,” John murmurs, shrugging when Sherlock meets his eyes. “Maybe it will help.”

With a sigh Sherlock tucks the mirror into one of the side pockets and shoulders the backpack. He grabs the torch off the counter and holds it like a sword. “Let’s go.”

 

Both boys kneeling with the cat between them, Sherlock lets John unlock the little door to hide the fact that his own hands are unsteady. When John pulls it open, revealing the dark tunnel beyond, he gasps.

Clicking on the torch, Sherlock points it into the tunnel, revealing the dusty, desecrated passage. “It used to be vibrant and alive,” he whispers. “But it went bad when She did.”

“The Other-Mother?” John whispers back, eyes wide as he stares into the tunnel.

Sherlock nods, biting the inside of his lip. “Maybe you shouldn’t come.”

John’s head whips around. “What?”

“There’s a reason your grandmother doesn’t want you in this house,” Sherlock mutters, forcing the words past reluctant lips. John is a sturdy, comforting presence at his side, his clear blue eyes guileless and his expression determined, his face still soft with childhood. “If we go in there, I can’t promise we’ll come out.”

John’s tongue darts out to lick his lips as he considers, his eyes searching Sherlock’s. “If I didn’t believe you before, I definitely do now,” he says, gesturing at the tunnel stretching out in front of them. “And we’ve been over this: I am not about to let you face whatever is on the other side alone.” One side of his lips curls in a cheeky smile. “Like it or not you’re stuck with me.”

Between them, the cat makes a disgruntled sound, saving Sherlock from coming up with a reply when his eyes are prickling with John’s words, his throat tight in the face of such undeserved loyalty.

With a chuckle, John nudges him. “The cat’s getting impatient.”

“Right,” Sherlock mutters and crawls in, torchlight bouncing erratically as he moves. The cat scampers to his side while John follows behind.

“You know you’re walking right into her trap,” the cat announces, making John jump. “And you’re bringing her fresh meat to boot.”

“Sher – the cat – what?” John splutters, grabbing Sherlock’s ankle.

“Oh, did I not mention that?” Sherlock throws over his shoulder, smirking at the shocked glare John aims at him.

“No, you definitely failed to mention that my cat can _talk_!”

“Hush!” Sherlock rebukes, laughter in his throat.

“You should both go back,” the cat growls, and Sherlock sobers.

“I can’t, she has my mother and brother.”

“And I’m not letting him go by himself,” John pipes up.

“Whatever you see in there,” the cat warns, “know that she is creating it. She may try to impress you, John, lure you into her web.”

“Is that likely?” Sherlock worries.

“Perhaps not, now that she lacks energy. It took a great effort building this fantasy for you, Sherlock. That’s why she’s so desperate for you to stay.”

“I can’t go back home yet. Not without Mummy and Mycroft.”

The cat sighs. “Challenge her then. She won’t play fair, but she won’t refuse. She has a _thing_ for games.”

“Fortunately,” Sherlock smirks, “so do I.”

Just then, the door at the other end of the tunnel blows open and the cat scampers off. A crouching silhouette blocks the light from the doorway.

“Sherlock?”

“Mummy?”

“Oh, Sherlock, you came back for us!”

Aiming the torch at her face, Sherlock sees that it really is Mummy, her face drawn and tired, a smudge of pencil lead on her nose.

“ _Mummy_!” He abandons the torch and launches himself out of the tunnel and into her arms, ignoring John’s shout of warning.

“My clever bee,” she sighs, wrapping a long-fingered hand over his shoulder, “why would you run away from me?”

Stiffening in her embrace, Sherlock shoves away, stumbling into John as the other boy emerges from the tunnel. John grabs his arm to steady him, squeezing when the image of his mother transforms, that squirming, wriggling maggot sound accompanying the stretch of her bones as she shoots up and up and up.

“Oh, God,” John breathes as she chuckles, stripping her costume of Mummy’s clothes to reveal the black dress she’s wearing underneath. The outfit exposes all her sharp angles, her waist the size of Sherlock’s arm, her back hunched, her collarbones nearly breaking out of her skin, her limbs like sticks.

“You’ve brought a friend to play with,” she exclaims, clapping her hands together while a grin splits her skeletal face. “How lovely.”

“Where is my real mother?” Sherlock demands, stepping forward and tilting his head up to glare. “And my real brother?”

She sighs with exaggerated disappointment. “I have no idea where your old family is. Perhaps they’ve gotten bored of you and run away.”

“They didn’t run away,” he grinds out, watching as she slowly steps around him. “You stole them!”

She holds out her spindly, clawed hand to John in greeting. “Hello, I’m Sherlock’s mother. It’s so nice to meet you, John.”

John’s eyes are wide and he licks his lips nervously, but he clasps her hand with his tremoring one, shaking it firmly. “I don’t know what you are,” he says, meeting her button-eyed gaze unflinchingly, “but you are not a mother. And you’re definitely not Sherlock’s.”

Her smile twists into something arrogant and cruel. “Take a seat, boys, won’t you?” She nods over their heads and Sherlock whirls, gaping when he sees who’s crept up behind them.

They used to be Other-Mycroft and Other-Father, but now look like abominations. Other-Mycroft has swelled to three times his normal girth, his entire body bulbous and deformed. His skin has an odd, slimy, almost slug-like texture, his button eyes bulging from his face, his mouth and nose nearly smothered by his swelling cheeks. At his side, Other-Father looks like a wilting flower, his spine curving impossibly until his head is nearly at his belly button, his drooping face turned to the side so he can see. His arms seem to have gained a joint each, folding close to his body like those of a praying mantis and his fingers twitching spasmodically.

The Mycroft creature wraps its slimy arms around John while those folding praying mantis arms grab hold of Sherlock, dragging the boys into beetle chairs. Waving antennae brush Sherlock’s face, the arms of the chair wrapping around his middle as John is trapped similarly beside him. Other-Mother smiles with satisfaction and walks to the little door, stooping over so she can whistle into the tunnel. A little squeak sounds out and a fluffy white mouse comes scurrying out of the tunnel, the door’s key in its mouth.

“That mouse!” Sherlock bursts out incredulously. It’s the same one that led him to this other world in the first place.

“I control everything here, my dear,” Other-Mother tells him smugly, locks the little door, pops the metal key in her mouth and swallows.

“There’s only one key, of course,” Sherlock surmises, mouth twisting as the large armoire sentry returns to its spot in front of the little door.

She smiles at him, but her eyes narrow. “Of course, my clever boy.”

“Clever boy, clever bee,” the Mycroft creature singsongs, his voice slurred and muffled.

The Other-Father twists his head back and forth. “Maybe you should let him go. You don’t need two.”

Other-Mother’s head snaps towards him. “ _Shh!_ ” she chastises, and stalks around the boys to grab the two creatures by the ears. “Don’t you both have chores to do?” she reminds them pleasantly, and drags them from the room.

The moment she’s gone, the chairs release them and Sherlock hops out of his to kneel in front of John, who is very pale and still. “Alright?” he murmurs and wide eyes meet his. “I’m sure you regret coming and now we can’t even get back.”

They both glance at the armoire blocking the locked door, their only way home. John shakes his head and grips Sherlock’s wrists. “I can’t believe you were going to come here alone,” he says accusingly.

“Well, I…” Sherlock’s mouth falls open in surprise. “I wouldn’t have had a choice.”

He shakes his head again, his eyes sad, and lets Sherlock pull him to standing.

Just then, a tapping sound, like knuckles against glass, echoes through the room and Sherlock whirls around, searching for the source. The room is immense, with its high ceiling, stretching walls and an abundance of hiding places, with its bug furniture, roaring fireplace and cluttered mantel.

“Mummy?” he calls out quietly. “Mycroft?” The tapping comes again, but from what direction Sherlock cannot tell. “Where could she be hiding them?”

John places a hand on his shoulder.

“Sherlock! John!” Other-Mother calls from the kitchen. “Time for breakfast!”

She’s humming in front of the stove when they creep in and take their seats at the table, an assortment of jams and honeys and cheeses spread out, the gift box with the buttons and thread in front of Sherlock’s spot. John sees them and meets Sherlock’s gaze with eyes wide with horror.

“I didn’t have a chance to prepare a gift for you, John,” Other-Mother says apologetically, pouring the contents of a bowl into a frying pan. “But rest assured that there are buttons for you, too.”

“John’s not a part of this,” Sherlock says carefully.

Leaning back against the worktop, Other-Mother crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow. “He’s here, isn’t he?”

“He won’t be needing buttons,” Sherlock insists, nearly growls, but she only smirks. “Let’s play a game.”

Her face slackens a bit.

“I know you like them.”

“Everybody likes games.” She taps her claws against her arm. “What kind of game?”

“A hunting game,” Sherlock offers. “A finding things game.”

She turns back to the stove. “And what would you be finding, Sherlock?”

“My real mother and brother.”

“Too easy,” she croons, and turns, bringing the pan with her.

“And,” Sherlock continues, “the eyes of the ghost children.”

She pauses for a moment, then plops a crepe on his plate. She hums and moves back to the stove for a second pan, then delivers a crepe to John as well. “What if you don’t find them?”

“If I lose, I’ll stay here forever.” He takes a deep breath, glancing at the open gift box in front of him. “And I’ll let you sew buttons in my eyes.”

“And what of John?” she wonders, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. John sits very still.

Shaking his head, Sherlock repeats, “John’s not part of this.”

“You brought him here, Sherlock,” she argues, not moving her hand. “If you stay, so does he.”

John’s jaw clenches.

Sherlock grips the seat of his chair. “No.”

She tilts her head at him, her button eyes flat and unmoved. “It’s non-negotiable, honey.”

“Sherlock,” John growls, eyes blazing. “Remember what I said.”

Sherlock glares at him, but John’s gaze is just as fierce. Other-Mother’s hand is squeezing his shoulder, her long nails digging into his pyjama shirt. “Fine,” Sherlock chokes out. “Fine. But you have to give me a clue.”

She smiles at him and releases John, who rolls his shoulder subtly. She returns the pan to the stove and then leans against the worktop again. “And if you somehow win this game?”

“Then you let me go. You let everyone go. Mummy, Mycroft, me, John, the ghost children. Everyone you’ve trapped here.”

She sighs as if he is being irksome. “Deal.” She holds out her hand.

“My clue first.”

“Right, right.” She pulls back her hand. “In each of three wonders I’ve made just for you, a ghost’s eye is lost in plain sight.”

“And for my family?”

She simply crosses her arms and smirks, silent.

Sherlock looks across the table at John, whose mouth is pressed in a thin, determined line. He nods.

“Fine,” Sherlock sighs. “It’s a deal.” He turns to face her, but she’s gone.

 

“What did she mean, ‘three wonders’?” John asks as he follows Sherlock out of the house.

Their path is illuminated by moonlight, and Sherlock wishes he hadn’t abandoned the torch back in the tunnel. "She created these…these adventures, mysteries for me, to entertain me,” Sherlock explains, leading the way to the fountain. “This is the first one.”

Stepping up behind him, John gasps, leaning against the low barricade that contains a small ocean. “No wonder you wanted to come back,” John murmurs, taking in the gently lapping water. “This is amazing.”

“It was better before.” Sherlock frowns, noticing the pirate ship out in the middle of the water, its anchor lowered, its sails torn and sagging. By the fountain edge is a small rowboat, tied to a tree. “The, uh, other you was with me, too.” Not meeting John’s sharp look, he sets about untying the rowboat.

“There was another me? With buttons?”

Sherlock nods, tugging the rope free from its knot.

“That’s what you meant by ‘the John that talks’!” John realizes, stepping up beside him. “Did the other me not talk? Why? And where am I?”

“I don’t know where the other you is,” Sherlock hedges, grabbing the boat’s bow so it doesn’t drift away.

“And the other me doesn’t talk?” John presses.

Stepping up onto the ledge, Sherlock glances down at him. “You coming?”

Crossing his arms, John raises an eyebrow. “Will you answer my question?”

Sherlock sighs explosively. “I might have mentioned that I thought you talk too much and don’t listen to me, so the Other-Mother thought it would please me if the alternate you were mute.” A look of hurt crosses John’s face and Sherlock looks away. “Now will you come on?”

Scrambling up onto the ledge, John carefully steps into the boat, sitting quickly when the whole thing tips alarmingly. Sherlock settles in after him, sitting on the thwart closer to the stern, and they each take an oar, pushing away from the ledge. Water laps against the hull, gentle splashes each time they pull their oars out of the water.

“I didn’t realize you thought that about me,” John mutters from behind.

Glad that John can’t see, Sherlock closes his eyes. “I don’t. I was being selfish,” he admits slowly, “and the Other-Mother exploited that.” John is silent so Sherlock forces himself to continue, “And obviously you do listen to me or you wouldn’t be here.”

A hand touches Sherlock’s shoulder and he turns, finding John smiling at him. “You’re right, I do blather on sometimes. I’ll try to be a better listener.”

Sherlock smiles back and turns around so he can continue to row. “I don’t really mind. I can ‘blather on’ sometimes too.”

John’s quiet chuckle is interrupted by a thump against the boat. “Did you feel that?”

Sherlock nods and they stop rowing, letting the boat drift as they listen. Just audible above the gentle rush of waves, hissing whispers float on the wind, brushing past their ears and sending shivers down their spines.

“What is that?” John whispers, but Sherlock just shakes his head.

It sounds like gibberish, a sibilant susurrus that drifts around them, rising and falling with the gentle breeze.

“Let’s keep going,” Sherlock murmurs and lowers his oar back into the water.

Behind him, John grunts. “My oar is stuck.”

Sherlock is in the process of turning to face him when something erupts out of the water. There’s a deafening screech, and all Sherlock sees through the spray of water are long green arms reaching for John and the flash of sharp teeth. Something cold and wet seizes Sherlock’s wrist and he whips around, finding himself face to face with a monster. The hand wrapped around his wrist is webbed and clawed, the face that leers at him over the boat’s edge is sallow, cruel and completely hairless, with red button eyes and rows upon rows of gnashing teeth.

The horror Sherlock feels is so visceral he reacts without thinking. Yanking his arm free, feeling sharp nails drag across his skin, Sherlock grips his oar with both hands and twists, using the energy in his entire body to slam the heavy wood on the creature’s bald head. It shrieks, its mouth gaping wide, too wide, like the unhinged jaws of a snake, and it lunges out of the water. Sherlock shouts and twists away, but long claws snatch at his backpack, unzipping a pocket and delving inside. With strength borne of fear, Sherlock strikes it again, brutally, with the end of the oar’s handle, and again, until the webbed hand releases and something clunks to the floor of the boat. With a pained, guttural growl, the monster retreats back under the water.

“Get off!” John yelps, and Sherlock turns to find him grappling with another creature, John’s boot pressed to its chest to hold its snapping teeth at bay. Breathing heavily, Sherlock brings down his oar again, aiming with the narrow edge of the paddle at the monster’s neck. It recoils under the impact, and when Sherlock winds up again, it pulls away with a wail, its sharp claws pulling off John’s boot. John tumbles off his seat and into the boat, and both boys watch as his boot hits the water, which immediately begins to churn, tiny fins breaking the surface as a horde of fish devour the shoe in seconds.

The water calms again, the loudest sound their panting breaths as they recover, eyes wide and hands shaking. By some miracle they both still have their oars. The pirate ship is less than twenty metres away.

Something glints in the bottom of the boat, and Sherlock reaches down to retrieve Mrs. Sissons’s hand mirror. Shrugging free of his back pack, he finds a side pocket shredded.

“Why steal this?” he murmurs, turning the mirror over in his hands before tucking it into his trouser pocket.

“Let’s move before they come back,” John gasps, and they begin rowing again, adrenaline increasing their pace. Within minutes they’ve reached the ship and found a rope ladder hanging over the edge, which Sherlock scrambles up first, John at his heels.

The ship is eerily still, its tattered sails swaying gently, the rigging groaning occasionally, the boards creaking under their feet. Barnacles and a black sludge have encroached on the railings and decks, the scent of rotting wood rising into the air.

There’s a chest of pirate clothes on the deck, but when Sherlock kneels in front of it and reaches for the lid, John stops him.

“You’re bleeding.”

His voice sounds distressed and he grabs Sherlock’s hand, inspecting the torn skin on his wrist with a wrinkle between his brows.

“Got me with its claws,” Sherlock dismisses.

“We should have brought a first aid kit,” John frowns.

Sherlock shrugs and opens the chest. “It’ll stop on its own.” He shuffles through the garments until he finds what he’s looking for. “Here.” He holds out the boots to John, who’s standing with one bare foot.

“Thanks,” John smirks, and quickly kicks off his remaining shoe and stuffs his feet into the boots.

Sherlock finds a monocular abandoned on the slimy deck and peers through it at the distant island, which is empty and calm. Sherlock lowers the monocular. “The eye has got to be somewhere on this ship.”     

“I wonder what she meant,” John mumbles, tearing a strip of fabric from a white shirt in the chest with his teeth, “by ‘lost in plain sight’.” He takes Sherlock’s hand and wraps the fabric around his bleeding wrist, clucking sympathetically at Sherlock’s hiss.

Eyes widening, Sherlock plunges his free hand into his pocket. “What indeed,” he breathes, pulling out the hand mirror and looking into it. His reflection appears normal, but when he angles the mirror, the world around him reflects back in grayscale.

Peeking over his shoulder, John gasps as Sherlock slowly moves the mirror, watching the colourless reflection. “That’s brilliant! Didn’t Mrs. Hudson say the mirror is supposed to reflect the truth?”

“Or the hidden. She couldn’t remember which.” Turning slowly, they both peer at the gray images of the deck and the sails and the masts. By the door to the captain’s quarters is a pile of rope and barrels and sails, and in the mirror a glowing red light appears. Whirling around to look directly, Sherlock cannot see anything, but when he checks through the mirror again, there is unmistakably something there. “That must be it,” he whispers, and they sneak towards it.

There’s a sword sticking out of the pile of netting and ropes, with an emerald jewel inlaid in the hilt. When Sherlock angles the mirror down next to it, the emerald reflects with a red light. John reaches out to grab the sword, but the moment his fingers make contact, the pile of ropes bursts outward, the sword lifting into the air. The boys stumble back in surprise, and Sherlock nearly loses the mirror before stuffing it back in his pocket, but they halt at the loud thump behind them. They turn together and find the Mycroft creature, his limbs tied in the ship’s rigging like a marionette, a sword in his hand. They look behind themselves and find the Other-Father, ropes securing the sword with the emerald jewel to his hand, his ankles and wrists secured just like Other-Mycroft’s.

“We’re sorry,” Other-Father wails, and the ropes jerk, forcing him to lunge forward, the sword swinging down at their heads. Sherlock and John duck and split up, and the swinging sword narrowly misses Other-Mycroft.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” Other-Mycroft mumbles, voice garbled, his face swollen. The ropes tighten and both creatures jerk into motion, Other-Father going after John and Other-Mycroft closing in on Sherlock. “Mother’s making us.”

Looking around desperately, Sherlock can’t find a weapon in his immediate vicinity, and dances back as a sharp blade swipes at his neck. He scrambles up the stairs to the poop deck, but there’s a loud rush of air and his attacker flies through the air, propelled by the ropes, to land heavily in front of him. With a grunt, Sherlock rolls out of the blade’s path and dashes for the steering wheel, where a sword lies abandoned on the deck. He stoops to pick it up and immediately turns, raising the weapon to meet the other blade with a crash. Glancing down at the main deck, Sherlock sees that John has picked up the monocular and is using that as a crude shield.

Other-Mycroft attacks again, and Sherlock is forced to focus. The monster is strong, but his motions are jerky and forced, and as Sherlock blocks the strikes he lets himself get pushed back, towards the ship’s railing. When he feels the wood against his heel, he quickly turns and pushes his opponent against the railing and slices his sword through the ropes puppeteering him. Immediately, Other-Mycroft drops the sword, but Sherlock does not trust him and gives him a strong shove, the swelling abdomen squishy under his hands, and the creature overbalances and falls overboard. Not even waiting for the splash, Sherlock turns and seeks out John, finding the boy with his back against the mast, the monocular lying on the deck in pieces.

Tearing his knapsack from his back, Sherlock rips open the zipper and pulls out his hat. Other-Father raises his sword, John recoils, and Sherlock lets the death-Frisbee fly. The spin is beautiful, the aim true, and the hat knocks into Other-Father’s hand, sending the sword clattering to the ground. Not missing a beat, John thrusts a shoulder into his assailant, spinning the creature around so that he’s tangled in his own ropes, one catching on his awkwardly stooped neck. Then, while he’s still disoriented, John picks up the sword and plunges it into the Other-Father’s back.

Frozen, gripping the railing, Sherlock watches as the Other-Father shudders and sags before collapsing to the deck, his body disintegrating as sand pours onto the deck. John stumbles back into the mast and slides down.

An enraged shriek splits the air and the ship shudders. Rushing to the railing, Sherlock peeks over and finds more of the sea creatures, their long, green arms smashing into the ship’s hull, rending wood with their bare hands. Sucking in a breath, Sherlock clatters down the stairs to the main deck and skids to a stop at John’s side.

“The mermaids are back,” he hisses, and picks up the sword at John’s side, the emerald glinting dully.

“Those,” John gasps, as the ship lurches, “are not mermaids.”

Digging through his backpack again, Sherlock pulls out the lock-picking kit and chooses the pick with the thinnest tip. “What are they then?” he shoots back, pulling the sword into his lap and slotting the thin metal tool in the tiny gap between stone and steel.

“I’ve no bloody idea, but mermaids are meant to be pretty, with lovely singing voices.”

A clawed hand appears on the railing and Sherlock jams the tool in more forcefully. “We’ll have to agree to disagree.” He wriggles the pick desperately.

“Sherlock.”

The sounds of smashing wood increase, and an unintelligible hiss floats across the deck.

“ _Sherlock_.”

“Got it!” With a final jab, the jewel pops free and clatters to the deck. Sherlock picks it up and the world transforms.

It starts under their feet, like a blooming white rose, or a crack in the ice. There’s a crunching sound, like boots walking through thick snow, as tendrils of white reach out and expand, bleaching the deck, the sails, the rigging and the monsters of colour. The boys scramble to their feet, Sherlock dropping the sword as that too turns ashen in his hand, watching as the entire ocean and everything in it goes blank and inert, like an old monochrome image.

In his hand, the jewel glows red and heats up with life, and a voice whispers to them, “ _Thank you, bless you, you’ve found me. But two eyes are still lost.”_ The jewel fades back to a cool green.

Sherlock’s and John’s eyes meet, and then they both glance up as shadow falls over them. Through the frozen rigging of the ship, the full moon begins to eclipse, the encroaching shadow stopping a third of the way over the moon.

“Looks like time’s running out,” John remarks, voice hushed. He picks up Sherlock’s hat and hands it to him, watching as Sherlock stuffs both the hat and the emerald in his backpack.

They climb the rope ladder down the ship again, jumping off to land on the solid, inert ocean. Several of the horrid mer-creatures are frozen in their attack, some in the process of climbing up the hull, some with their claws smashing the planks, their faces stuck in vicious snarls.

Unnerved and by silent agreement, they jog all the way across the small ocean to the fountain’s ledge, where colour returns to the world. When they step onto green grass, John giggles and Sherlock looks at him sharply.

“That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done,” he snickers.

For a long moment Sherlock just stares at him. He’s got scratches on his hands, the knees of his pyjamas are torn, but his eyes are crinkled in amusement, his nose crinkling, his small white teeth flashing. His grin is infectious and he finds himself chuckling along with him, an irrepressible laughter from deep in his belly.

“Evil mermaids, _honestly_ ,” John gasps, catching Sherlock’s arm and leaning over to catch his breath.

They approach the house again, their amusement fading as they follow the faint music drifting through the door of apartment C.

“What’s the next wonder?”

“Angelo’s,” Sherlock murmurs, leading the way. The closer they get, the more distorted the music sounds, and the hair on Sherlock’s nape and on his arms rises with his unease. It’s the same atmospheric melody as before, but now it seems that there is a wrong note every other measure, prickling their ears with its unsettling sound.

They come to a stop in front of the door, pausing when they hear an odd flapping sound. Hanging from the railing by the door is a set of clothes, waving gently in the wind, flecks of dust at the collar of the shirt and the cuffs of the trousers. Sherlock stiffens.

“Are those…?” John wonders. “Those look like my clothes.”

Clenching his fists, Sherlock says nothing.

“How are they…? Wait, are these the clothes of the other me?” John demands.

Throat tight, breathing quickly, Sherlock leans over the banister. “Evil witch!” he screams into the night, voice cracking. “I’m not afraid of you!” Behind him, Angelo’s door creaks open like a taunt, like a dare, and Sherlock stalks inside.

“Sherlock, wait!”

“We are getting out of here, John,” Sherlock promises, striding down the dark hallway, the arrows pointing them onwards flickering like a faulty lightbulb. “You won’t end up like that.”

Just as he’s about to push through the door to the kitchen, John catches Sherlock’s shoulder. “I believe you.”

Pausing, Sherlock glares at his own hand against the door. “You do?”

“Yeah, just...calm down, alright? We need to keep level heads.”

Nodding, Sherlock takes a deep breath, opens the door slowly and steps into the empty auditorium. The two chairs with their reservation plaques are still there, the table overflowing with rotting food and scattered cutlery. The television above the stage flickers with static, an accompaniment to the demented music that still plays. Flies buzz through the mess on the table, which they give a wide berth as they step onto the stage, one light illuminating the empty water tank.  

“Dinner and a show?” John guesses, looking around the room.

“More or less.” Sherlock pulls out the hand mirror and holds it in front of him, aimed over his shoulder to reflect the room behind him.

“See anything?” John murmurs. “This music is giving me the creeps.”

“Not yet.” He’s moving the mirror slowly as he scans the room, looking for any hint of colour. “Come on, where are you, you stupid…” He stops. One of the large bolts inside the tank, holding the walls together, glows blue. The tank has an open door on the back and Sherlock tucks away the mirror as he approaches it. “It’s in the tank.”

John is glancing around the shadowed room nervously. “Grab it and let’s get out of here.”

Stepping into the empty tank, sound is instantly muffled by the eight foot walls, his breathing loud in the narrow space. The bolt will have to be unscrewed and Sherlock reaches for it, hoping his strength will be sufficient.

The door clangs shut behind him and a shackle shoots up from the floor, encircling this wrist.

John bangs on the tank from the other side. “Sherlock!”

Below his feet, water begins to rush in and by the time Sherlock has determined that the manacle has no lock to pick, the water is up to his ankles. John has run around to the closed door and is attempting to find a handle to pull it open, his fingers skimming uselessly over the smooth surface.

“ _You think winning this game is a good thing?”_

Angelo’s voice booms through the room and through the glass, the boys stare at each other. John’s face is very pale.

“ _You’ll just go home and be bored and lonely, same as always.”_

The table in front of the stage shudders and rotting food tumbles to the floor. A hole opens in the centre of the table and the Other-Angelo crawls out, his limbs like limp spaghetti, his face like a mottled brick of cheese, his chef’s hat falling into his eyes.

The water is at Sherlock’s shins.

Yanking is free arm out of the backpack strap, Sherlock tugs on the fastening of the other strap.

Like a wet rag, the Angelo monster flops up to the stage. “Stay here with us,” he hisses.

Unable to pull the end of the nylon strap through the plastic adjustment piece, Sherlock contorts his body to fit through the loosened strap, water splashing everywhere, the skin of his wrist rubbing painfully in the manacle. He’s soaked up to the hips.

“We will play with you.” Other-Angelo looms up, blocking the light of single bulb. “And laugh with you.”

Sherlock chucks the backpack over the back wall of the tank and into John’s waiting hands.

Other-Angelo follows the motion with his head, the chef’s hat flopping. “If you stay here you can have whatever you want.” A straightjacket hangs unfastened around his torso and as his body sways, his arms dangle just like the jacket straps.

There’s a loud crash that reverberates through the tank and Sherlock flinches, glancing over his shoulder to see that John has the hammer in his hand. Other-Angelo jerks forward.

“You don’t get it,” Sherlock snaps, drawing his attention back, “do you?” The water’s at his waist now. The manacle around his wrist forces him to hunch over, unable to pull away.

“I don’t understand.”

The hammer impacts the glass again.

“Of course you don’t,” Sherlock spits, smacking the glass with his palm. “You’re just a copy She made of the real Angelo.”

Another crash. Another and Sherlock hears something crack. The water is at his chest. He’s panting a little.

The Other-Angelo sags in front of him, his voice distorted and rasping, crackling and snapping like static. “ _Not even that…anymore_.” He collapses and beetles come pouring out of his clothes, thousands of shiny, black insects with immense pincers, scuttling around the tank and swarming on John.

With a shriek, John stumbles back as the beetles climb up his legs and over his body, swatting with his hands and twisting in a frenzied panic. The hammer drops to the floor at the same moment the water rises over Sherlock’s head.

Squinting under water, his heart pounding in his ears, Sherlock peers through the glass at John’s flailing and pulls desperately at the manacle, water tinging pink as he reopens the scratches from the mer-creature. The glass has a delicate spider web of cracks thanks to John’s efforts, and, lungs burning, Sherlock begins kicking at the glass, his motions slowed underwater. John is stomping the floor, swiping his hands over his arms.

Black spots begin bursting in Sherlock’s vision, and he clamps his free hand over his mouth and nose, fighting the reflex to expel his used air and inhale. He kicks again, again, until his heel throbs, but the fissures are expanding, and again, again. At last, with a crack that Sherlock can hear underwater, the combined abuse of his kicking and of the water pressure shatters the glass. The water spills out of the tank in a rush, flooding the stage and the beetles scrabbling along the floor.

Coughing and spluttering, Sherlock hunches over and breathes for a moment before leaning out and grabbing the abandoned hammer.

John is yelping and flinging the beetles into the water. “Get off, get off, get off!”

Left wrist still firmly cuffed, Sherlock uses his free hand to smash the hammer into one of the tank’s hinges, hoping to loosen the bolt. There’s a splashing sound and Sherlock sees John running up to him through the ankle deep water.

“Sherlock, you alright?”

There are welts everywhere his skin is exposed, marring his face and neck and hands. There’s a beetle clinging to his collar with its pincers and Sherlock flicks it off with a grimace, watching as the pest lands in the water and flails its legs uselessly.

“God, John, your face.” He tucks the hammer under his arm and reaches out, not sure what he intends to do, but is stopped by the manacle around his wrist. They both glance at it and Sherlock is surprised to see blood running freely down it hand.

With a sharp inhalation, John steps over the broken glass wall and into the tank, kneeling to inspect the clamp. “You’ve really buggered up your wrist now.”

“It wasn’t exactly intentional,” he mutters, and John glances up at him, a welt swelling his bottom lip, the corner of his left eye, his forehead just under his damp fringe. His eyes are wide and very deep blue, swimming with too much emotion to accurately read and Sherlock’s breath catches.

John licks his lips, wincing subtly when his tongue brushes a welt, and glances at the loosened hinge. “Which bolt was it?”

Sherlock swallows thickly, and blinks, water dripping into his eyes. “Bottom right.”

The bolt wriggles slightly under John’s fingers, but it still takes several minutes of twisting, readjusting his grip and twisting again, before the bolt finally pops off. The manacle springs open and Sherlock straightens gratefully, stretching his back and cradling his bruised and bloodied wrist as the stage shudders. All around them, the auditorium transforms, the curtains ruffling and the water rippling as everything turns dull and pale grey, that crunchy-snow sound crackling through the room.

In John’s hand, the bolt shines a radiant aqua blue. “ _Hurry on!_ ” a voice breathes. “ _Her web is unwinding!_ ” Standing, John holds the bolt reverently in both palms, watching as it fades back to inconspicuous steel. Looking at Sherlock, he beams.

Sherlock’s lips twitch, but he rolls his eyes playfully. “I loosened it,” he grumbles, just to make John laugh.

The backpack is damp but its contents are dry, and John tucks the hummer back in along with the second ghost eye. Sherlock shoulders it again and allows John to redo the ruined bandage on his wrist, which is stinging quite badly, actually. John squeezes his hand before letting it go.

“The sisters’ next.”

Outside, the moon is two-thirds eclipsed.

 

The descent to the basement is undertaken alone this time, no Mrs. Hudson greeting them at the door. The air is humid and heavy with the too-sweet scent of overripe fruit, and the lower they go, the darker it gets. By the time they reach the bottom, it is nearly pitch black, and they stand for a moment to let their eyes adjust. Occasionally a lightning bug zips by and, once they’ve acclimated to the dark, they realize that some of the plants seem to be glowing faintly. Sherlock takes a step away from the stairs and the ground beneath his feet lights up dimly, as if the dirt itself is phosphorescent.

There’s a soothing blanket of sound all around them, the rustling of leaves, the chirping of crickets, the quiet songs of night birds. Sherlock takes out the mirror from his damp trouser pocket and they head towards the path that leads into the forest.

“This doesn’t seem so bad,” John murmurs at his side, eyes wide in the darkness.

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Sherlock mutters back, angling the mirror and looking for a spot of light. “Careful not to touch anything, all the plants are poisonous.”

“Jeez.” Crossing his arms tightly over his chest, John hunches his shoulders. “You have odd interests.”

They step into the trees and the forest goes eerily silent. Pausing, they glance at each other, ears straining, but even the leaves have stopped rustling. Slowly, hesitantly, they creep onwards, their crunching steps loud in the darkness, with Sherlock slowly sweeping the mirror in front of them. They’ve gone less than ten steps when something stirs behind them.

Gripping Sherlock’s arm, John tugs him forward more quickly, their breathing picking up. The hair on Sherlock’s nape stands up with the feeling of eyes watching him. They make it another half dozen steps when they hear a hiss somewhere to their right.

“Are there snakes in this forest?” John breathes into Sherlock’s ear.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know, possibly. I didn’t see any last time.”

“ _Ssssssssneaky…_ ”

They freeze.

“ _Very sssssneaky…”_

The voice is feminine and has an overtone, like two voices speaking at once, and it comes from directly behind them. Gripping each other and whirling, they can see nothing, only a hint of the path behind them and the dimly glowing leaves around them. They circle slowly, trying to follow the slithering sound that seems to surround them, but then Sherlock catches a flash of green in the mirror.

He stiffens and squeezes John’s arm. “I see it.”

“What?”

“The eye. It’s moving.”

“ _Ssssscoundrelsss… Tressspasssserssss…”_             

“Where?”

Swallowing around a suddenly dry throat, Sherlock says nothing, just watches in the mirror as the green ball of light hovers just behind their shoulders. He tilts the mirror up and up to follow its motion.

They can feel breath on the back of their necks. “ _Hello boyssss.”_

With twin gasps they stumble and twist around. At first they see only an immense shadow, looming over them, but then the creature seems to burst with light. Squinting, they cower back.

“ _Isss thissss what you’re looking for?”_

At first glance, Sherlock can’t tell if it is one being or two. It appears to be an immense serpent, with a winding, limbless body that splits into two torsos, four sets of arms and two heads weaving in the air overhead. One half is a sickly yellow, the other a moss green, and the two bodies twist together where they join, like an immense piece of licorice. The yellow torso bears an earless, hairless head, smooth, glimmering scales covering its face, but Sherlock vaguely recognizes the features of Mrs. Sissons. The green half is equally reptilian, but has ears and resembles Mrs. Hudson, scales glowing as if its very blood produces light. Their movements are in sync, their forked tongues tasting the air, and around the neck of Mrs. Sissons lies a large pendant.

Glancing in the mirror, Sherlock sees the pendant blaze with green light and nods jerkily in response to their question. Mrs. Sissons strokes the pendant with long fingers.

They both bare their teeth and speak at the same time. “ _Thievesssss. Do you intend to sssssteal it?”_

“We could trade it for something?” John offers, voice high and shaking.

They cackle and slither around them, brushing through the poisonous plants unconcernedly. “ _There issss nothing you have that we want_.” With a snap like a whip, the tail sweeps their feet out from under them, and the boys land on their backs in the dirt.

Struggling out of his backpack, Sherlock takes out Redbeard’s leash and thrusts the backpack at John. “Take this. I have a plan.”

“ _You might assss well give up_.”

Taking out the hammer and shrugging on the backpack, John looks at him expectantly.

“On the count of three, you run left, I’ll run right. Aim for the tail.”

“ _You will never essssscape thissss placccce_.”

“One…two…three!”

They scramble up and dart off in opposite directions. The sisters hiss and move to follow them, but one tries to follow John, the other Sherlock, and instead they jerk in place. Leash wrapped around is forearm, Sherlock takes a deep breath and moves before he has time to think, jumping on the snake’s back and scrambling up to where the body splits into two. The sisters snarl and twist, grabbing for him, but then seize and shriek suddenly as John begins wailing on the tail with the hammer.

Sherlock is nearly thrown off as the snake bucks, but manages to grab hold of a scaly shoulder. He unwinds the leash and, like a lasso, encloses both of the sisters’ head with the loosened collar, pulling on the handle when the leash settles around their necks. Ducking out of the way of their flailing arms, Sherlock tightens the collar brutally, knocking their heads together and choking them. They make gurgling sounds, their eyes wide as they struggle for breath. Practically dangling with one hand gripping the leash desperately, Sherlock reaches for the necklace, but when his fingers brush the chain, the forest bursts into life.

A murder of crows explodes into the air, their abrasive caws ringing in Sherlock’s ears as they swoop at him. The snake is beginning to sag from lack of oxygen, but the sisters give one last violent shudder to dislodge him and he loses his grip. He lands hard on his back in the dirt, watching as a crow dives down and snatches the pendant, lifting the necklace off an unresisting Mrs. Sissons.

“No!” Without thinking, Sherlock grabs the only thing he has on hand, the mirror in his pocket, and hurls it violently at the escaping crow. With an effortless swoop, the bird evades the projectile and flies out of the forest, the mirror disappearing somewhere in the trees. Sherlock swears viciously, raking a hand through his tangled hair.

Behind him, the sisters are panting on the ground, recovering, but still have enough breath to laugh at him.

Overhead, the crows circle and cry, the trees like sentient beings as they twist and reach. John grabs him by the shoulders and tugs at him.

“We need to leave.” He pulls until Sherlock stumbles. “ _Now_.”

“It took the pendant,” Sherlock gasps. “I lost the mirror.”

“ _Run_.”

They tear down the path, dancing around plants that lick at their ankles and nip at their heels. The ground in front of them explodes in a shower of dirt, and they rear back. Turning to find the shooter, Sherlock finds an immense plant, vaguely resembling a Venus flytrap, winding out of the trees to face them. Before he can really process what he is seeing, the plant winds up with a humming sound and shoots forward, mouth open to release its projectile.

John tackles him to the ground.

They’re at the edge of the forest, in view of the stairs, and as they lie there unmoving, the plant, satisfied, retreats back into the trees. John’s body is a heavy weight on top of him, his face pressed into Sherlock’s neck, and Sherlock squeezes his arm.

“John. _John._ ” Over the other boy’s shoulder, Sherlock can see something protruding from John’s back. “John, _please_. Get up, John!” Vision swimming, throat hot, heart pounding, Sherlock shakes John’s shoulder, afraid to roll him off and disturb the dart in his back.

Stirring with a groan, John shuffles to his hands and knees, taking his weight off of Sherlock. “Is it gone?”

Sherlock scrambles out from under him. “Did it hit you? How are you feeling? Is it poison?” He grabs John’s shoulders and turns him.

“Sherlock!” John twists in protest and stands, and the dart, the size of Sherlock’s hand with a bright red tip, falls to the ground. “I’m fine.”

“The backpack,” Sherlock breathes. There’s a ragged hole in the knapsack’s fabric, but when Sherlock pulls it from John’s shoulders, John’s pyjama shirt it smooth and untouched. Inside the bag, the hard cover of the sign language book is dented. Suddenly lightheaded with relief, Sherlock sucks in a breath. “You idiot!”

“What?” Offended, John pulls out of his grip, whirling around with a frown.

“Why did you do that?”

“What, save your life?”

“You could have died!”

“You almost did!”

“How did you know the backpack would save you?”

John shrugs. “I didn’t.”

“You idiot!”

With a growl, John strides out of the trees. “I’m not an idiot.”

With a disbelieving laugh, Sherlock follows. “What other explanation is there?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” John spits, stomping up the stairs. “Maybe that I’m rather fond of you? Maybe that I didn’t want you to die?” At the top of the stairs, John turns, noticing that Sherlock has frozen several steps back.

With a very small voice, Sherlock asks, “What?”

“That can’t come as a surprise.”

Sherlock shakes his head, eyes wide.

Brow furrowing, John descends a couple steps. “Why else would I have come here? To this wretched world?”

“To save your great-aunt.”

“Sherlock, my great-aunt has been dead for sixty years.” He descends another couple steps until he’s one above Sherlock. He fidgets nervously, suddenly unable to meet Sherlock’s confused gaze. “Why do you think I kept following you around after we met? You accused me of stalking you.” He licks his lips, his eyes finding Sherlock’s before darting away again. “I like you, Sherlock. God knows why, ‘cause you can be a right prat, but I think I rather fancy you, actually.”

It feels like he can’t get enough air into his lungs. “What?”

With a short sigh, John raises his eyes towards the ceiling briefly. He clasps Sherlock’s face with gentle hands and leans down, brushing his lips against Sherlock’s shocked mouth. Both of them keep their eyes open, watching each other warily. “Now do you understand?”

With a sharp inhale, Sherlock closes his eyes and pulls John back again, pressing a kiss inexpertly to his lips before burying his face in John’s neck. “I’ve lost the game, John. I’ve lost everything,” he chokes, and John’s arms encircle him immediately. “How can you feel this way when I’ve ruined it all? You’re stuck here, forever.”

A loud _meow_ interrupts them. Pulling away from each other, they both look to find the cat’s silhouette at the top of the stairs, his tail flicking in the air. Ascending the steps to meet him, they find a dead crow at the cat’s feet, the pendant falling out of its lax beak.

“I think I mentioned that I don’t like birds at the best of times,” the cat rumbles, licking a paw.

“That’s exactly what you said,” Sherlock agrees with a sniffle, bending to pick up the pendant.

“Thank you,” John says, heartfelt, to the cat.

Sherlock opens the tattered backpack and adds the third ghost eye to the other two, pulling the bag back on as the apartment crackles and turns dust grey around them. “I’m going back to my apartment. I still need to find my mum and brother.”

There’s a deep, reverberating thud outside that shakes the house, and the three of them hurry out the door to find the moon fully eclipsed by a button shaped shadow. As they watch from the porch, the night sky begins to fracture and peel, paper-like flakes floating down around them as the world crumbles. Trees shake and burst apart, the paths around the house unravel like a loose thread being pulled, the very ground breaking apart like jigsaw pieces. The porch begins to shiver and splinter.

“Come on!” Sherlock shouts. The cat jumps into John’s arms as Sherlock grabs John’s hand and they sprint around the porch to apartment B. The wood planks crack and fly off into the blank nothingness behind them as Sherlock thrusts open the door. They tumble inside and Sherlock slams the door just as the last step falls away, leaving the house floating in empty space.

“Alright?” John pants.

“Yes. You?”

He nods and they get to their feet, the cat puffed up and shivering in John’s arms. Together, they walk down the hallway, the wallpaper curling behind them, the wooden floors creaking and the ceiling cracking. When they enter the living room, the bug furniture twitches weakly, their movements slow and awkward. They find Other-Mother hunched on the settee.

“So, you’re back,” she breathes. Her voice sounds like sand blowing over shattered glass. The cat growls and she looks at them, John pressing close to Sherlock’s side. Nothing about her appears human anymore. Her face is cracked ivory, her hair is hard onyx, her body all exposed bones and her hands are sharp-tipped metal. “And you brought vermin with you.”

“No,” Sherlock replies weakly, and has to clear his throat. “I brought friends.”

She stands, the light from the fireplace illuminating her full figure, and John clutches Sherlock’s hand. She’s so tall that the mirror above the mantel catches her reflection, and her legs, all multi-jointed metal, have multiplied, some bent in front of her and some stabilizing behind. Doing a quick count, Sherlock realizes that, including her arms, she now has eight limbs.

“You know I love you,” she sighs, dragging a cold, needle finger down his cheek.

John stiffens while Sherlock leans away. “You have a very funny way of showing it.”

She pulls back, teeth bared. “So, where are they? The ghost eyes?”

Reaching into the backpack, Sherlock pulls out the three items they’ve collected: the emerald, the bolt and the pendant. With a wheezing growl, the Other-Mother swipes at him, but Sherlock jerks the eyes out of reach. “Hold on. We’re not finished yet, are we?”

“No, I suppose not,” she allows, her segmented legs clacking against the floor as she turns away. “After all, you still need to find your _old_ family, don’t you?”

Sherlock nods, watching her carefully, John a steady warmth at his side.

She reaches into the folds of her dress. “Too back you won’t have this.” With a teeth-baring grin, she reveals the hand mirror and throws it to the ground, smashing the glass with a needle-pointed leg. She cackles with deranged pleasure.

“She’s never going to let us go,” John whispers, glancing at the little door behind the armoire.

In his hand, the emerald glows and whispers, “ _Be clever.”_

His thoughts circle around two words: _the key_. Raising his chin, Sherlock meets the Other-Mother’s eyes. “I already know where they are.”

“Indeed? And where might that be?”

With a confidence he does not feel, Sherlock turns and points at the passageway home. “They’re behind that door.”

She smirks at him. “They are, are they?” With her thudding, loping crawl she moves past them to the armoire, and the boys dart to the fireplace. The mantel is cluttered with old family pictures. Sherlock can hear a ticking.

With a wave of her hand, the armoire scuttles out of the way.

Something is niggling in the back of Sherlock’s brain, something to do with the ticking. While the Other-Mother’s back is turned, Sherlock and John search the fireplace mantle until they find Sherlock’s parents’ anniversary clock.

“There!” the cat whispers, nudging a photo out of the way.

Pressed against the glass, out of the path of the clock’s revolving pendulum, are miniature Mummy and Mycroft, their tiny faces peering out. They tap on the glass, waving to catch his attention.

Tears spring to Sherlock’s eyes. He reaches for the clock, but John tugs on his arm. The Other-Mother makes a gagging sound, coughing until the key falls out of her mouth into her hand, and she turns to glance at them with a cruelly amused expression.

“Go on,” Sherlock urges. “Open it. They’re there alright.”

“You’re wrong, Sherlock,” she singsongs, unlocking the door. “They’re not there.” She pulls open the door, revealing the dark, empty tunnel beyond. With a laugh, she pulls out a needle and a spool of thread, looming over them. “Now you’re both going to stay here forever.”

With a mental apology for what he’s about to do, Sherlock spreads his feet, steadying his stance. “No, I’m not!” He grabs the cat out of John’s arms and throws the animal at the Other-Mother’s face. With an enraged yowling, the cat lands on her, claws outstretched, and Sherlock scoops up the clock, stuffing it into the backpack.

John grabs his hand and pulls him towards the little door while the cat hisses and the Other-Mother screams. The cat manages to tear her button eyes off her face before she throws him across the room.

“You horrible cheating children!” she screeches and the cat darts out the open door, disappearing through the tunnel. Before they can follow him, the Other-Mother slams her arms against the wall and the entire floor falls out from under their feet.

For a moment they fall freely, still gripping hands, until they’re caught at the bottom of a net. They bounce gently, and glancing around, Sherlock realizes the living room floor has transformed into a huge spider’s web, the bug furniture stuck and twitching in several places. The Other-Mother lets out a cackle that sounds like a scream and sails through the air towards them, her eight legs outstretched, and Sherlock and John scramble in different directions, climbing up the web’s rungs like a ladder.

“No!” she wails, landing where they were a moment before. Blind, she tilts her head, listening for them. “Where are you, you little brats?”

Some of the rungs are coated with a thick, sticky substance, and Sherlock’s pyjama trousers get stuck in the stuff. Biting his lip, Sherlock tugs hard until he pulls free, then watches in horror as the motion sends vibrations all the way through the web, down to where she is listening, needle hands touching several threads. The moment the vibrations reach her, her head whips in his direction, and her mouth opens wide as she chuckles.

Across the web, Sherlock meets John’s wide eyes for a second. He’s closer to the door than Sherlock is, but he’s frozen, watching as the Other-Mother hurtles up the web. “Go, John!” Sherlock orders before turning and scrambling further up the web, hoping to at least distract her long enough for John to get out. But she’s faster than he is, and her needle-tip limbs don’t get stuck in the rungs. Sherlock just reaches the edge of the fireplace when her cold hand closes around his ankle.

“Got you,” she snarls, her metal fingertips cutting into his pyjamas.

He kicks her in the face with his free leg, shaking her off long enough to reach up and grab a wrought iron poker. She grabs at him again and Sherlock slams the poker down at her with all his strength, aiming for her hands and head.

“You selfish, hateful child,” she shrieks, recoiling. On his next swing, she raises her hand and snatches the tool, yanking it out of his grasp and chucking it behind her. “You dare disobey your mother?”

Pushing off from the edge of the fireplace, Sherlock launches himself to the side, scuttling sideways along the rungs and closer to the door. There’s no time for thought, only action. Her hands swipe the air behind him. He’s nearly there when she grabs him again, this time by the arm. With an unbelievable strength, she forces him onto his back on the web and crouches over him, her limbs forming a cage around his body. Her cracked, eyeless face leans over him, her lips pulled back in a snarl, her teeth inches away from his neck. Clenching his eyes shut, Sherlock presses back into the web, a whimper escaping his clenched jaw.

There’s a loud crack and the Other-Mother screams, jerking away from him and falling, catching herself on the web several feet down, the poker sticking out of her back. Face terribly white, John reaches a hand out and Sherlock clasps it gratefully, allowing the other boy to pull him off the sticky web so they can clamber up to the door.

“Don’t leave me!” the cries.

Snatching the key from the lock, Sherlock throws himself into the tunnel, turning and scuttling back as John pulls himself up. He has this horrible memory, suddenly, of the Other-John pushing him into the tunnel and slamming the door between them. When John has his torso through the doorway, Sherlock reaches out a hand to grab him, just as the Other-Mother’s hand closes around the back of John’s shirt.

“John!” Sherlock seizes John’s wrist as the younger boy is jerked back, inhuman growls ripping from the Other-Mother’s throat as her face rises up in the doorway. John kicks at her and grabs Sherlock’s other hand as well, the human rope in their game of tug-of-war. “You. Can’t. Have him!” Sherlock grunts, but he’s losing ground; John’s legs are entirely out of the tunnel now.

Rising from his backpack where the ghost eyes are tucked away, three sets of spectral hands drift out, joining Sherlock’s hands where they grip John’s wrists. “Help me!” Sherlock begs, and with their added strength, manages to pull John into the tunnel. Wriggling and twisting, John lashes out at the Other-Mother with his feet, pushing her back so that he can reach the door. Lunging forward, Sherlock helps him as she reaches a grasping, metal hand into the tunnel after them. They slam the door closed on her wrist and the hand falls into the tunnel with them as Sherlock thrusts the key into the lock, twisting it viciously.

They both jerk back when the door reverberates under a heavy fist. “No!” she screams, pounding on the door. “Don’t leave me!”

As they scramble towards home, the entire tunnel shakes with her distress.

“Don’t leave me here! I’ll die without you!” With each heavy thump, the door seems to get closer to them. “Don’t leave me, _don’t leave me!”_

The pounding speeds up, a staccato beat that turns into a rapid thrumming. Sherlock throws himself out of the tunnel, John tumbling out after him, and he throws the door shut against the sound of her keening. He manages to lock the door before she slams against it from the other side one final time, throwing him back onto the floor with the force of her desperation.

He lies there, on his back, the knapsack on the ground beside him, panting, John hunched over at his side. From his position on the floor, Sherlock gazes at the cracks in the ceiling and thinks, absently, that with a little effort and teamwork, they wouldn’t be so very hard to fix.

Pushing himself up, Sherlock tucks the key in his pocket and tears open the backpack, glancing inside to find the three ghost eyes, his hat and the book, but no clock. With a gasp, he springs to his feet.

“What is it?”

“The clock! It’s gone! I have to –” he stops, noticing the broken glass on the floor by the fireplace and glances up at the mantel, where the anniversary clock sits, its casing shattered. Standing and coming to Sherlock’s side, John gazes at the clock. “The last place I saw this, it was still in a box in the sunroom upstairs,” Sherlock whispers.

The sound of the front door opening draws their attention.

“Sherlock, we’re home!” Mummy calls, and Sherlock can’t stop himself from rushing forwards.

“Mummy! Mycroft!” His enthusiasm is incredibly out of character, and they look at him oddly, though Mummy, still tired-looking and pale, manages a smile.

“We just went out shopping,” Mummy explains, as if it weren’t obvious from the bags of groceries in her hands.

“Sherlock, what have you done?” Mycroft demands sternly, and the familiar tone brings a grin to Sherlock’s face. “You and…” His eyes flick up and down John’s body, “…John Watson are both filthy. And you’ve broken our parents’ anniversary clock!”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Show-off.”

Stepping forward, John’s shoulder brushes Sherlock’s. “That was my fault,” he says quickly. “I was helping Sherlock unpack some things but I accidentally…dropped it.”

The pattern of cracking on the glass is all wrong for the clock to have been dropped, and Sherlock knows Mycroft will notice it, but he says nothing, only leans into John gratefully.

“Oh.” For a moment Mummy looks crestfallen, but then she smiles kindly at John. Sherlock watches her expressive face hungrily, drinking in the first real emotion he’s seen her express in ages. “Well, that’s alight, I’m sure we can get it fixed. It’s a horribly gaudy thing anyway.” She heads towards the kitchen. “Why don’t you boys clean up and you can join us for dinner, John? I think it’s my turn to cook, don’t you, Mykie?”

Mycroft lingers for another moment, looking down his nose at the two of them, but when he glances at the broken clock on the mantel, his expression morphs into something distracted, something perplexed. Something glimmers on his shoulder and Sherlock notices it’s a small piece of glass. With a shake of the head, Mycroft utters, “ _Do_ be more careful not to tear the house down, won’t you, Sherlock?” and joins Mummy in the kitchen to unpack the groceries.

Sherlock sticks out his tongue after him.

“They don’t remember,” John realizes, hushed.

“Mycroft…almost did. Perhaps the Other World isn’t something adults can comprehend.”

Lips pursed, John nods easily. He turns and brushes a hand through Sherlock’s matted curls, pulling out a cobweb. With a smile, he leans in slowly and delivers a peck to Sherlock’s parted lips. “I’m just glad it’s over.”

Sherlock’s eyelids flutter open. “Is it?”

“Well, perhaps not all of it,” John allows, and kisses him again.

 

That night Mummy tucks him into bed, and he’s too shocked to put up a fuss over being babied. He lies in the darkness with his forehead hot where her lips pressed, and jolts out of his daze at the sound of a loud _meow_ outside his window. With a grimace, Sherlock gets out of bed and opens the window, finding the cat’s disgruntled face peering at him, his tail flicking irately.

“Hello, again,” Sherlock mutters, fingers fidgeting and tapping. “You still angry?”

The cat grumbles at him, ears pulled back.

With a sigh, Sherlock looks out at the moon so he doesn’t have to meet the feline’s accusing eyes. “Look, I’m very sorry I threw you at her. It was the course of action with the highest likelihood of us all getting out.”

The words are stilted, but the cat must hear some sincerity in them, because his ears prick forwards and he ducks his head into Sherlock’s palm, allowing the touch. Scooping the cat up, Sherlock sets him at the foot of his bed before crawling under the covers again. Leaning over the side of the bed, Sherlock pulls out the three ghost eyes from his tattered backpack, holding them in his palms.

“I think it’s time to set them free, don’t you?”

The cat gives a decisive nod. Sitting cross-legged on the mattress, Sherlock takes a moment to contemplate the eyes, wondering how best to go about this endeavour. Then he remembers the broken clock, shattered when Mummy and Mycroft escaped. The emerald, bolt and pendant are hard and cold, but when Sherlock squeezes his hands around them, they heat up in his palms. Light bursts out from between his clenched fingers, red and blue and green, and Sherlock squeezes harder with a grimace, until at last he feels them crumble. Immediately he opens his hands, finding them covered in fine, coloured sand, which bursts into the air with a sound like a trickling stream.

“ _It’s a fine thing you did for us,_ ” one of the children breathes. In the air in front of him, three wisps of light curl and hover, in shades of crimson and cerulean and chartreuse. “ _But it’s not yet over for you.”_

“Not over?” Sherlock repeats incredulously. “How? I locked the door!”

_“It’s the key! There’s only one, and She will find it!”_

Placing a hand on his sternum, Sherlock feels the key under his shirt, where it hangs from a cord around his neck.

“ _Destroy it! Get rid of it! Before it’s too late!”_

With a final burst of light, the ghost children merge and fly out his open window, leaving a chilling darkness in their wake.

Sherlock glances at the cat, which stares at him with wide, flashing eyes. He pulls the key out of his shirt. “I need to hide this. Somewhere She will never find it.”

The cat shakes his head at him, but Sherlock ignores him, jumping out of bed and grabbing his boots. He dashes silently through the house in his socks, then, at the bottom of the stairs, he stuffs his feet into his boots and grabs his coat before running out into the night. He knows exactly where he can dispose of the key.

As he weaves through the trees and along the dirt path, Sherlock hums quietly to himself and hunches in his coat, ears prickling with the creaking of swaying branches, the chirping of crickets, the rustling of night animals in the brush. As he reaches the clearing, he thinks he hears a quiet tinkling sound and whirls, eyes burning as he glares through the darkness at the path behind him, but sees nothing. Boots squelching in the mud, Sherlock finds a heavy stick and thrusts it under the well’s lid, pushing it open and kneeling at the dark opening.

Pulling the key out of his shirt, he grabs the cord to pull it over his head –

Out of the corner of his eye something flashes in the moonlight and flies in front of his face, grabbing the key and pulling him away from the well. With a yelp, he falls on his back in the mud, the cord choking him as he’s dragged across the ground, feet kicking, hands scrabbling at his neck. He reaches one hand out, clawing at the dirt, twisting, but it only makes it harder to breathe.

“Sherlock!” Bursting from the trees at the edge of the clearing, John pedals towards him on his bike, his tyres kicking up mud. Hunched over the handlebars, John bikes right above Sherlock’s head and the dragging stops.

Sitting up, Sherlock sucks in a breath and coughs, his throat burning, and finds John still astride his bike, something metal crawling up his arm. _The Other-Mother’s hand!_ he realizes. John cries out as the hand reaches his face, pointed fingers aiming for his eyes, and twists frantically, losing his balance and flying from his bike. Sherlock yells out wordlessly as John rolls and tumbles over the edge of the open well, his hands scrabbling at the edge.

Lunging for him, Sherlock slides on his knees through the mud and reaches out, but the metal hand crawls up John’s back, out of the well, and attacks, stabbing at their fingers and swiping at the key again. Sherlock reels back, leaving John dangling in the well, as the hand goes after him again. He tries to bat it away but nearly impales his palm on the splayed fingers, then he attempts rolling to shake it off instead. He manages to mash the thing into the mud for a moment, but it slithers free and rounds on him again, going after the key with single-minded determination. It’s about to lunge when a large rock is dropped onto it, smashing the hand into pieces.

Looking up, Sherlock finds John, dirty and panting, his face scratched and fingers bleeding, but alive. He looks like he might be ill, so Sherlock gives him a moment, plucking up each metal piece and chucking them into the well. He pulls the cord over his head and ties that around the small boulder, the key clinking against its side and stands, picking up the rock with a huff. John joins him then, hands joining his to lessen his burden, and together they drop the weighted key into the well, watching it disappear until they hear a distant splash. They push the well’s cover back into place and then grab each other, arms encircling and hands clenching.

They’re both filthy, caked in mud and shaking, John’s breath hitching in a way that might mean tears, and Sherlock pulls him closer, pressing his face into John’s warm neck. “It’s fine, we’re fine,” he murmurs, eyes squeezed shut. “It’s done, she can’t get out. It’s done.”

“It’s over,” John breathes in relief and Sherlock nods.

“Yes, yes, it’s over.”

Once they’ve calmed, they pull apart and John’s fingers hover at Sherlock’s neck, frowning as he traces burning skin. Shaking his head, Sherlock clasps his hand in both of his, kissing the scratched knuckles.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about you, in that house with Her, and I couldn’t just…I had to come see you.” He takes a breath. “Thank god I did.”

Nodding, Sherlock steps back, shucking his filthy coat and rubbing at his aching throat. “Sleep over tonight,” he offers, but is cut off by a distant and irate call.

“ _John Hamish Watson!”_

John flinches. “God, I’m so dead.”

_“Get home this instant!”_

“What am I going to tell her?” Panicked eyes meet Sherlock’s. “She’s already furious that I went into the pink house yesterday.”

“Let me come home with you. We can explain it all together.”

John’s shoulder sag with relief but he bites his lip. “Are you sure? You don’t have to –”

“John.”

Sherlock gazes at him earnestly, trying to express his willingness, his _desire_ to do this for him. John has done so much for him, has shown loyalty and bravery beyond anything Sherlock could have possibly imagined in a human being. As someone who feels a sense of superiority around most people, it’s novel the way Sherlock feels now, this hope, this need to be worthy of John.

“Alright.” John smiles. “Grandma will be happy to hear your story.”

“Our story.”

John’s smile widens. “Our story.”

Shaking mud from their clothes, they make their way back into the trees.

“So.” Sherlock watches him out of the corner of his eye. “Hamish?”

“Shut up.”

 

They sleep in John’s bed that night, exhausted physically and, after their discussion with John’s grandmother, emotionally. In the morning, Sherlock wakes to find they’ve shifted in their sleep, and lies for several moments contemplating the feeling of John in his arms. He’s overly hot, slightly sweaty and never wants to let go.

They’re lured out of bed by the smell of French toast, which Harriet sleeps through and John’s grandmother eats with them in her sunny kitchen. Compared with the nervous, hunched old lady that waited for them on the porch last night, she looks like a new woman. It’s as if a weight has been lifted off her shoulders, as if five years have been erased from her skin, simply with the knowledge of her sister’s fate. Her sister’s freedom and peace.

Mummy comes to get him partway through the meal, and when John’s grandmother opens the door to greet her, she has a bemused expression on her face.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality, Hilda,” she says, after declining an offer of breakfast. “I hope it wasn’t an imposition. I didn’t realize Sherlock was gone until you called me last night.” She gives him a stern look, but can’t entirely banish the bewildered slant to her eyebrows. “He’s not normally one for sleepovers.”

“Oh, it was no problem at all,” Mrs. Watson promises, a hint of a Scottish lilt to her words. “You’re son is very clever and brave – it brings me peace to know that Johnny has a friend such as him.”

Stuffing a large chunk of syrupy toast in his mouth, Sherlock says nothing, rolling his eyes when John smiles at him from his side at the table.

Mrs. Watson persuades Mummy to join them for coffee, and John and Sherlock make their escape, the women’s conversation drifting behind them as they run up the stairs to John’s room.

“How’s your eldest doing? What was his name again – Mike? Mason?”

“Mycroft. He feels the weight of his father’s death very keenly, but has been very good while I’ve been…finding myself again.” She pauses, and then, more quietly, “He’s leaving for university in less than two weeks.”

“How fitting that our boys have found each other, then.”

It’s tempting to hide around the corner and eavesdrop on their conversation, to hear Mummy’s thoughts, but John tugs on his arm with a firm expression and Sherlock follows. Closing the bedroom door behind them, John quickly makes his bed and sits on the covers, watching as Sherlock wanders his room, fingertips brushing photographs and toys and sports equipment.

“That’s the most I’ve heard her speak in weeks,” Sherlock murmurs, stroking the engraved plaque of a rugby trophy, his skin pressing into the crevices of John’s name.

“It takes time for people to process emotion.” He sounds very calm and far too serious for his fourteen years. “And nobody does it quite the same way.”

Turning to look at him, Sherlock finds John’s eyes trained on him, watching him carefully. “She abandoned us.”

“She was coping.”

Pursing his lips, Sherlock turns away, flipping through a well-used biology textbook without looking at the print.

“But it sounds like she’s coming to terms with it.”

The mattress squeaks but Sherlock stays stubbornly turned, focusing on a diagram explaining photosynthesis. Socked feet brush the floor behind him, then familiar arms wrap around him from behind, lips pressing to the nape of his neck. A shiver rolls through him at the sensation of warm breath rustling his hair and he turns, leaning in to slide their noses together.

They don’t pull away until Mummy calls that it’s time to go.

 

“Don’t run off again without telling me,” Mummy orders in the car.

Donning a sulky expression, Sherlock hunches in his seat, though his heart isn’t really in it. The fact that she’s showing interest in his whereabouts is too pleasing. “Fine,” he mutters. Then, more quietly, “Sorry.”

Her ice-blue eyes flick over to them, some of the persistent haziness fading to reveal a more familiar sharpness. She sighs as they pull up to the house. “Me, too.”

 

She locks herself in the study once they get home, which sours Sherlock’s mood slightly. He finds Mycroft lazing on his bed, nose buried in a book, so he wanders off, finding himself drawn to the living room. He stands in front of the little door for a long time, staring at the four scratches gouged into the paint at the bottom that were not there before. If he listens very carefully, he can hear the suggestion of moaning and thumping, and doesn’t quite manage to convince himself that it’s just a burbling old pipe. The sound makes his skin crawl, and he grabs the box of photo albums on the coffee table before hurrying out of the room.

 

Sitting cross-legged on his bed, Sherlock flips through every page, glancing over some photos and intently studying others. There’s a picture of him and Mycroft from nine years ago, both of them dressed as pirates. A photo of Mycroft and Father on Mycroft’s sixteenth birthday, his brother’s face rounder than he remembers. An image of Mummy and Father for their eighteenth anniversary, Father’s hand obscured somewhere behind Mummy’s back and Mummy’s hand swatting at his arm, an expression of amused outrage on her face.

Each page brings with it a torrent of memories, and Sherlock lets them rush over him, lets himself drown in emotion, until, for the first time since his father’s death, he lets himself really cry. Shoulders shaking, Sherlock buries his face in his pillow to muffle the ugly sounds he makes as he sobs, curling in on himself as all his anger, and loneliness, and despair burst out of him. By the time he quietens, he feels an odd sort of serenity. Not numbness, because all those feelings of loss are still there, slowly trickling in the background, but more of an acceptance, an acknowledgement of the sentiments he can no longer ignore.

He thinks of John’s grandmother, finally learning the truth about her sister sixty years after her disappearance, and wonders how she survived with such uncertainty for so long.

 

“I have something for you,” Mummy tells him that afternoon, standing in his bedroom doorway and looking at the exposed photo albums with a wistful expression. She does not ask Sherlock how he’s feeling, or why he’s looking at the photos. Of his parents, she was rarely the one to discuss matters of sentiment.

Sherlock’s been holding his violin for the past hour, learning the feel of it again, the smooth, polished body, the tight, straining strings, but he hasn’t worked up the nerve to make a sound yet. He played for the Other-Father, but it feels different, here, in the real world. Curious, he sets the instrument in its case and follows her out his room.

She stops to knock on Mycroft’s door. “Would you come out for a moment, Mykie?”

When Mycroft emerges his face is smooth, but his eyes are busy flicking over her, seeing more than Sherlock can ever hope to. He nods and the brothers follow her as she leads the way down the stairs and to her study, where her pages are all stacked and organized, her books put away, her pencils sealed in their case. They stand just inside the room as she unlocks the bottom drawer of her desk and pulls out two small, black boxes. She hands one to each of them.

At his side, Mycroft swallows heavily and leaves the room, and Sherlock watches his retreat, surprised. He glances at Mummy questioningly, but she just shakes her head with a sad, knowing smile, not offering an explanation. Looking to his own box, Sherlock pulls off the lid, though by its weight he already has suspicions as to what it contains.

Nestled in black satin sits Father’s old pocket watch, gleaming gold and silver, ticking quietly. Afraid to touch it, Sherlock looks up at her with wide eyes.

“I should have given it to you sooner,” she apologizes.

He takes a single halting step towards her and she pulls him into a hug, the comfort of her touch almost more than he can bear. He can’t imagine why Mycroft would rather hide away than have this, and tucks his chin over her shoulder.

“So, I was thinking,” she murmurs, stroking his hair. “We should have a little party, to greet the neighbours. I know you'll hate it, so I figured I’d give you some forewarning.”

He considers that. He pulls back. “I’ve been practicing sign language,” he says, watching as her eyes crinkle with fondness. “And I’m sure, if you asked, that Angelo would be happy to bring some sort of concoction.”

She pulls him into another hug. “My sweet, clever bee.”

The moniker makes him tense.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Just. Can John come too?”

“Seeing as he’s a neighbour, I’d say his presence is mandatory,” she teases, and Sherlock lets the memory of metal hands and a skeletal face fade away.

 

Sherlock takes the pocket watch and his violin to the sunroom that night and stands in front of the immense windows. He places the watch, open, on the sill and tucks the instrument under his chin, raising the bow to the strings, fingers slightly clumsy. The moon is full and bright, illuminating the old fountain and the cobblestone paths leading into the trees.

He starts with some scales and arpeggios to warm up, to get used to the motion of playing again, remembering how to hold his body without tension, rejoicing in the slide of the bow across the taut strings. Once he feels at ease, he moves on to a song from memory, one of Father’s favourites. It’s saccharine, overly sentimental, but the familiar melody is soothing and comes to him easily. If he closes his eyes, he can picture his father sitting and listening, a smile on his face and his foot tapping in the air.

Playing when he’s absorbed by the music always make him feel like he’s in his own little world, an enclosed bubble where his mind can wander and the problems of reality sort themselves into manageable, unimportant trifles. It’s freeing, really, floating on the music like this. Only now that he’s playing again does he realize how much he’s missed it.

He plays until his arm gets tired and his fingertips twinge, then puts the violin away, snapping its case shut and then closing the pocket watch with a click. He won’t be ready by tomorrow, but he’ll keep practicing, and he has time. John’s not going anywhere. They’ll be going to school together in the autumn, after all.

When he’s ready, he’ll play for John and, with any luck, transport him to another world with his music. And if not, well… The world they’re in, with the lives they’ve got, really isn’t so bad either.

**Author's Note:**

> Your comments and kudos mean the world to me!
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr!](http://notesoflore.tumblr.com/)


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